Chapter 21 - Goblins

After five minutes, Carl defeated 30 direwolves overall. He was very tired, but he quickly gained most of his stamina with mana stones. 

Since he also seen that no more direwolves were coming and was starting to even avoid him, Carl moved in another area. 

Once he was finding a place though, Carl thanked the crescent moon daggers. 

'I thought they're just normal, but even after that battle, they only had a few cracks. It's durable and I have seven of them. With this, I can continue hunting. Normal attacks isn't as effective after all...'

  ...

In a brighter area of the forest, with a cave on the top of a hill facing a stream, the sound of a blade striking flesh was heard as Carl threw his dagger towards an area of bushes.

Carl was seen drawing his dagger and slashed it onto the air, stabbing the skull of an approaching goblin with a cub aiming for his head. 

The goblin wasn't very big, but they possessed more intelligence than the direwolves. In this area, the two monsters were the most dominant species, frequently trying to invade each other's territories. 

But they were easier to hunt for Carl. They were already weaker than the direwolves, and since they weren't really smarter than him, he could kill them even more easily. 

Carl stabbed the goblin's head.  The goblin leaked out a shriek, as the blade went through its skull, spraying blood on his face, right after Carl snatched the stone on its head. 

Slam! 

Another goblin attacked him from behind, but with his new strength, Carl easily grabbed its neck and slammed the goblin's head to the ground and used his right feet to stomp violently on its skull, crushing it to oblivion. 

Carl did not stop and walked over the bush immediately.

The goblin he threw the dagger at was still alive, albeit almost dead and was trying to crawl to safety. The hurried rustling of the bushes then increased.

Once it saw the fat boy looking at him, the goblin hurried to crawl faster, letting out a begging shriek, but Carl immediately stabbed it only to find another goblin in another bush. Not letting it get to position to attack, Carl immediately raised his feet and repeatedly stomped on its head until its eyes lost all life.

The scene was brutal.

The two goblins died in just a mere seven seconds.

Kekeke!

Witnessing their friends die, several more goblins then revealed themselves and jumped from the much more elevated ground they were hiding, letting out a battle shriek, snarling loudly at the merciless fat human.

"These monsters stink as usual." Carl only mumbled.

He naturally know that they were two more goblins there waiting for an opportunity to attack. He had already scouted how many his enemies were after approaching them. In fact, he could also hear their rudimentary crawling on the ground the entire time.

One of the benefits of his breathing technique was that once activated, it not only strengthens him to possess boar-like strength and speed, but it also heightens his five senses, allowing him to hear, smell, see, touch, and taste things a lot better than the regular person.

Although he could not use it for more than ten seconds yet, he could activate it before a fight to check the surroundings than just using the naked, immediately turning it off.

During a fight though, Carl knew he could not keep using the bloody boar for more than ten seconds, and had to finish them quick.

The new goblins was the same size as their peers. They had leather clothes covering their lower body, with some possessing weapons like clubs, swords, and daggers. 

Jumping from the top of the cave to attack, most of them were mid-air,  and already had their weapons aiming at him. 

"Idiots."

Carl used his bag as a shield, and pushed it forward onto the goblins violently, killing all their momentum, and lessening the force of their attacks.

Once the goblins crashed on the ground, Carl dashed towards one goblin, and neatly cleaved off its head. He did not take mercy, and did the same to the other goblins. Carl was now very different than earlier. Maybe its due to the mana stones and the rapid tempering it was doing to his centers of power, but Carl started to feel like the chains to his current body was being broken. 

Awakening his real fighting instincts. 

Slash! Slash! Slash!

Carl's cold eyes radiated a terrifying gaze of killing intent, and he neatly impaled the dagger's point onto three goblins, sending it deep to their skulls.

Just then, a deeper goblin shriek was heard. 

This time, a slightly bigger goblin attacked. It was the last one standing and the strongest in the group. 

Carl immediately let go of the dagger,s on the three goblin's skulls and turned around instantly.

The other goblin had already controlled its balance and had swung its wooden club aiming at his head, so Carl concentrated his strength on his arms, and stopped the club with his left hand before it could hit him, reducing the force.

Shriek!

The goblin let out a vicious shriek unhappy its attack was repelled. It sent out an attack on its mind, but Carl's sphere did not even tremble.

The creature felt the strength of the fat human holding its wooden club. Impending doom invaded its mind, and it tried to retreat immediately, but the fat human was too fast. 

Slam!

Carl gripped the wooden club on his right hand, almost making it snap in half and swung it as hard as he can hitting the goblin's temple into darkness.

The green creature leaked out pained groans, as the blood on his head started to leak. But Carl hit the same spot again. 

Right there and then, it died on the ground, heaving its last breath with increased difficulty, with his eyes looking at the merciless deep blue eyes of the fat human that suddenly came out and disturbed them of their sleep.

Using his forearms, Carl brushed his hair away from his eyes to avoid getting blood on it.  He immediately collected his daggers back, three were already broken and used the most cracked one to butcher all of the goblins' corpses' smashing their heads open, and grabbing their crystallized mana stones.

Of course, once he collected them all, he cracked some of them at the same time and sucked the mana without hesitation.

Goblins were one of the few monsters that could be defeated by regular humans, and although they were extremely weak, their center of powers weren't as concentrated to their constitution like the direwolves.

It was all of puny amount, but they're at least balanced.

With four goblin kills, Carl absorbed the same amount of mana as killing the direwolf.

As he inspected the goblins' mana merge with his mana pool, Carl then felt his stamina increase once again, feeling lighter on his feet, but now it did not only last for a second!

"..."

His body began to feel even lighter, sturdy and even full of strength. His senses and comfort by simply standing around felt a lot better and natural, more refreshing and airy.

'As expected of the Earth Physique, my body finally advanced to rank 1!'

He immediately inspected his Centers of Power, and checked that while his mental sphere and mana pool hadn't changed. His body had changed slightly, producing more energy and making his body seemed more flexible and powerful.

'This is great. This body isn't very ideal, but I guess it still has the Earth physique..

A smile appeared on Carl's face. He was no longer just a slightly superior version of a normal person. 

Carl jumped and his vertical leap was at least 49 inches now! He punched the trunk of a tree and it caused at least 20 fruits to fall to the ground.

Carl was happy.

'With this strength, I at least could fight without using bloody boar which honestly consumes my stamina too much.' Carl thought.