Chapter 3: Chilling Encounter

Chapter 3: Chilling Encounter

After smelling the blood of their kin, more goblins in the vicinity approached Hans's location, converging on him from all directions.

Soon enough, Hans found himself completely surrounded by these creatures.

There were at least a dozen of those monsters, and the screams of the nearby people had faded away.

While most of them managed to escape, some weren't lucky enough and met their fate after falling prey to the greedy monsters.

Without hesitation, Hans grabbed the rusty dagger from his fallen foe, though in his hands, it looked more like a knife.

"Krrkk," as the first goblin lunged at him, followed by others right behind it,?Hans, who had never used a dagger, figured that the difference in stats and weight would be enough to make up for the number of opponents.

Swinging his dagger around wildly like an amateur, Hans was able to kill three goblins while missing another one, nonetheless, he managed to sever its arm away.

"Kkka", "Kkkeeekk!"

This time, the remainder of the goblins rushed at him altogether, prompting Hans to swing his dagger 360 degrees, expecting their heads to be decapitated with this move.

However, right after slashing the neck of the first goblin and clashing with the second, the dagger snapped in two, eliciting an annoyed expression on his face, "Tch, I'll have to use my hands again."

Soon after, the sound of blood spattering and bones being crushed echoed through the empty buildings for a couple of minutes before any sound completely ceased to exist.

After five minutes, Hans was sitting atop a mound of goblin carcasses, surrounded by a gruesome scene of blood flowing out of the bodies akin to streams making their way from the mountains, with various dismembered green body parts that were scattered on the ground, forming a small lake of purple blood.

Even the dead bodies were greatly disfigured, making it hard to recognize the creature if not for the distinctive blood.

More than a pile of goblins, it now looked like a pile of flesh and rags.

And amidst all this, Hans, who was exhausted from all this activity, was panting heavily.

[ You have leveled up!]

[ You have leveled up!]

[ You have leveled up!]

[ You have gained 15 stat points; due to the effect of {Almighty Knowledge}, all the points will be attributed to wisdom. Due to the effect of {Almighty Knowledge}, all your other stats are raised by 1. ]

Even though this new point was added to his endurance and made his breathing stable, it wasn't enough to bring Hans to his peak condition.

But before he could make a complete recovery, Hans, who had relaxed himself a bit, sensed something across the street thanks to his heightened wisdom stat and was quickly alerted.

When he turned his head, Hans noticed a horde of goblins, too many for him to count in this situation, but he was sure that there were at least thirty or so of them.

And behind the group, looking off from the others because of its height greater than others by a dozen centimeters, was a goblin with a wand in its hands.

Gazing at a new kind of monster reminded Hans of his newly acquired skill, making him want to test it.

{ Piercing Gaze }

Just like stated in the description of the skill, a window appeared before his eyes, describing the creatures in front of him.

[ Race: Goblin

Name: None

Level: 5

Strength: 6

Dexterity: 7

Endurance: 5

"In this condition, I definitely cannot kill these five dozen goblins, and even if I tried to run away, I bet it wouldn't allow me to take twenty steps before I end up getting exhausted."

Hans thought hard, but it was to no avail as he couldn't come up with any solution, making him start losing hope, while sensing his exhaustion, the goblins slowly regained their will to fight.

As he forced himself to think more, Hans's breathing became heavier, while his vision became blurry and his thoughts were getting muddled as the panic set in.

Just when Hans had lost all hope and thought that he was about to die in a shitty hole even after receiving an opportunity to turn his life around, he saw a sudden, icy blue horizontal slash behead most of the goblin, while ice formed on the floor, making the temperature around him suddenly drop.

As all the lifeless bodies of the monsters fell onto their very own frozen blood, so did Hans.

However, before his body could touch the now ice-cold street, a lady surrounded by a cold aura and dressed in black held him up while pressing her hand against his chest.

Though she knew that the man in front of her couldn't hear, she spoke softly, "Your efforts have saved countless people. We are grateful for your work and bravery. Don't worry, I'll make sure you will be rewarded for what you have done."

_____

'Ugh... What's this feeling? My body, why can't I move? I ... I can't... open my eyes!'

Hans struggled as he forcefully opened his eyelids and saw the white ceiling right above him.

He turned his head a couple of times before recognizing the place and realized that he was in a hospital.

An IV was attached to his left arm's vein and supplied him with medicine while the other three beds beside him were all empty, making him the only person in the room.

'I could've died... fuck! I was about to die! What end would my family make if I were to die?! What the hell was I even thinking?!'

As the realization suddenly hit him like a truck, Hans couldn't help but regret his precious decisions.

"I was being too impulsive, now that I have this power, I'll make sure not to lose it in such an insignificant way. Such a low-rank gate was enough to almost send me to the afterlife..."

"From what I know, gates are divided in ranks according to their levels, just like people with Mage-related classes." Hans thought and continued to recall.

"At the start, the gate rank is G and the corresponding for mages is apprentices.?When the monsters inside a gate reach beyond level 10, it's classified as an F-rank gate, whereas when mages reach level 10, they receive permission from the system to create their 1st circle."

"From then on it goes like this:?Rank F = Lvl 10-25 (Tier-1)?Rank E = Lvl 25-50 (Tier-2)?Rank D = Lvl 50-100 (Tier-3)

And going beyond those levels, the tier went up with an increase every 50 levels."

'But for me, it seems to work in another way,' Hans thought, reminiscing about the system's message when he broke through the 100s in the wisdom stat.

[ Your wisdom has broken through the 100s threshold!]?[ You are now able to form your first circle!]

"Well, I guess that works better for me since I will be able to advance in circles without needing to level up"

_____

Having a higher reputation and being acknowledged as a better mage weren't the only benefits one would receive after advancing in circles.

The aspect that increases the most would be your control over mana and even your affinity towards it.

A higher-class mage will be able to control mana more freely and can cast higher circle spells as his level increases.

For example, even if a tier-1 mage were to obtain a tier-2 spell, it wouldn't be possible for them to be able to activate it.

_____

Hans continued to think about numerous things, but more than anything else, he was concerned about the person who had saved him.

He couldn't see them clearly, but he remembered the cold, and the slash that had decapitated dozens of goblins at once...

'It must've been a powerful warrior, perhaps a high-ranking one,' Hans couldn't help but think.

"Oh well... I will eventually find out who saved me," he mumbled before shrugging.