I do not know when I fell asleep, but I woke up to a beautiful sunrise.
I ate a light breakfast, did some stretches, and went to punch a tree for a few hours.
Afterward, I did my breathing exercises before going down to the river to wash away the sweat and grime from the day and fish up some dinner. All the while, my promise resonated within me, giving me the strength to push myself harder and harder.
I repeated this every day, eventually falling into the routine of daily chores and survival. But I knew it was missing something.
Something that would push my cultivation, something I needed to grow. I needed combat, something to fight, something to kill. I needed an enemy.
And after about two months of repeating the same thing every day, I got my wish.
It was a day like any other. I just finished bathing and was washing a spare set of clothes down by the river when a twig snapping broke the peaceful atmosphere of the forest.
I looked behind me, expecting to see a deer or if I was unlucky, a bear. You know, some kind of normal animal.
Instead, what I saw was about three small green humanoid figures. They were about three feet in height, wearing nothing but a loincloth around their waists. They had pointed ears, a broad nose, and a wide mouth full of small, sharp teeth.
Their yellow eyes burned in hatred as they looked at me and gripped their wooden weapons. The one in the middle held a long spear, well long for it anyway, while the two on the sides held thick sticks.
I slowly rose to my feet, putting my laundry away in my spatial ring as I observed what I'm certain were goblins.
They didn't move since I turned to face them, their hands gripping their weapons tightly as I rose, yellow eyes still trained on me.
"Hello, can I help you with something?" I called out, the sound of my voice startling them. I was hoping that these were less murderous monsters and more civilized monsters, despite their looks. Sure they may be ugly as sin, but that doesn't mean that they aren't capable of rational thought and negotiation.
'Never judge a book by its cover' is great advice and one that I've taken to heart.
In response to my question, the spear goblin let out a high-pitched scream before rushing at me, spear pointed forward. The other two quickly followed suit, swinging their sticks above their heads as they rushed forward.
Then again, the reason books have covers is to judge them, so maybe I should have expected this.
"Alrighty then. Have it your way," I grumbled out in response to my efforts to be diplomatic, being shit on as I shifted into a well-practiced stance. I simply waited there as the drumming of my heart drowned out their screams and time slowed as I focused on the spear-wielding one.
In the back of my mind, I realized I should be scared or nervous. This was my first fight. I was outnumbered and my foes were armed while all I had were my fists. Oh, and my foes were fantasy monsters. Typically low-level fantasy monsters, but monsters nonetheless.
Instead, all I felt was a supernatural calm with undercurrents of excitement and anticipation. I could finally test my mettle and see the results of what I've been working on for the past two months.
It was reckless, it was stupid, and if I'm being completely honest, a bit suicidal. But I couldn't help it.
The goblin reached my strike range, its spear poised to bury itself in my gut. My left hand lashed out, the side of my palm catching the spear's shaft and pushing it away before I wrapped my hand around it and pulled.
The goblin stumbled, its weapon getting wrenched from its hands as it tried and failed to hold on to it. It started to fall forward, not expecting the sudden force pulling it before I put my foot firmly on its chest and kicked.
I felt the bones flex as I kicked it, the force of the blow lifting it off the ground and sending it tumbling towards the other goblins. Its body connected with the one on the left, causing it to fall backward as its hopefully dead companion crashed into it.
'Huh, I wasn't sure if that would hit,' I thought with some surprise. I wanted to kick it towards its friends, hopefully to slow them down, but I didn't know if I could aim well enough to hit one of them. I was glad to see I was proven wrong.
I brought the spear I had stolen in my left hand up and down, swinging a wide arc toward the right goblin when it got into range. I heard the wind whistle as it traveled through the air before it slipped from my hand and went flying away.
Luckily, it did connect with the goblin's head, promptly shattering as it did. The goblin let out a cry of pain as its head was whipped to the side, causing it to drop its weapon and bring its hands up to its face as it fell.
I saw that the goblin's eye was bloodied and closed, splinters dotted its face as green oily blood seeped from the wounds and onto the goblin's hands. I barely gave it a chance to look at me before I stomped down on its prone form.
My boot met its head, and I felt the bones in its hands break before feeling its nose follow suit. Its head met the ground with a thump. It's brain matter and blood, along with bits of skull, shot out from under my foot as I raised my foot and stomped down again. And again and again and again and again.
I only stopped when I was satisfied with the bloody mess that spread out underneath my foot, and I heard the wind whistle again as I whipped around to face the new threat.
The goblin had finally gotten out from under its buddy and was swinging the stick it had at me. I couldn't dodge so I brought my arms up to block and braced myself. The stick made contact with my arm before it broke causing the goblin to stumble.
I barely felt the impact as I quickly rushed forward with my right fist to punch the green shit in the face.
The goblin dodged by flailing around and diving to the right. It brought its stick to bear, only to quickly lose it as I pivoted my feet and backhanded it from its grip. The stick went flying through the air, out of reach of both the goblin and me.
The loss of its weapon didn't deter it, however, as it quickly recovered before striking at my stomach with its claws. I dodged out of the way to the left, feeling the sharp claws cutting through my shirt and scraping against my skin.
I winced a bit at the pain, mentally berating myself for getting hit before replanting my feet and kneeing it in the side of the head, which sent it falling to the ground. I quickly went over and delivered a kick to its neck, enjoying the crack that resounded before it went limp.
I stood there for a moment, letting my heartbeat calm down and my hearing return. My breath was steady, and I had hardly broken a sweat. Yet, this fight had advanced my cultivation more than months of training did.
I could feel the Qi as it entered through my skin; it was very faint, and I would have thought it was just the wind if I hadn't grown familiar with it, but I could feel it there despite not sitting down and doing my breathing exercises.
It was a sign of progress. I had broken through the skin refinement stage and moved on to the next step, muscle refinement during this battle. In about three minutes of fighting, I had advanced to the next stage, something that at my current rate of training was going to take at least a week according to the manual.
I looked down and started inspecting the places where I got hit. My arm was a bit red, but no bruising as far as I could tell. I picked up my shirt and looked at my stomach, seeing four red lines, two of which barely broke the skin.
I looked at the down goblin's hands and saw the nails I had just been scratched with. They were long and pointy things, and after reaching down and touching them lightly, I could feel how sharp they were. Yet, instead of giving me a nasty gash, I barely got a scratch from them.
My shirt wasn't as lucky, the fabric was ripped, having four long slash marks where I got hit. It didn't do anything in terms of providing me armor, meaning that my skin was what tanked the blow.
Sure, it had been a glancing blow, but I should have a deeper cut than what I'm currently left with. The claws were like knives and I've cut myself on knives with a glancing blow while cooking enough times to know what the damage should be.
I couldn't believe how tough my skin had become, I knew it was getting tougher but knowing and actually seeing it in action are completely different experiences.
While the fight was able to prove to me that my cultivation thus far hadn't been in vain, it also showed that my techniques could use some work.
One thing this fight taught me was that my footwork was shit. The goblin never should have been able to hit me, but it did because I was unbalanced from a strike.
A strike that I shouldn't have been able to dodge in the first place, but didn't because I was in the wrong position. Which, of course, I was, after all, I let it sneak up on me in the middle of combat because I was too busy stomping on a dead enemy's head. I felt the grin on my face slowly fall into a frown.
I lost myself in the feeling of crushing the thing's skull like a pumpkin, and it cost me. If the goblin had an actual weapon, then I would be in trouble and probably dead or crippled.
I frowned harder as I let that thought pass through my head. When did I become an adrenaline junkie? I never was one before I came here, a bit brash and idiotic sure, but nothing like what happened during the fight.
It could be a side effect of cultivating or it could just be that I've always been like this and was never put in a position to act like that until now.
But whatever the answer, I could not let it continue. It needed to be controlled and nipped in the bud as soon as possible.
I can't make a mistake like that with an opponent who is capable of harming me. They were going to use weapons, weapons that I didn't and couldn't use, meaning I was pretty much always going to be at a disadvantage in terms of reach.
The reason why I couldn't use weapons was simple, I sucked with them. I didn't get any feedback when I tried to train with a knife, leaving me to focus entirely on my body's martial arts instead.
And when I tried to use the knife that day for training, I cut myself multiple times. I bled more on that one day than I did in a couple of weeks of punching a tree. Whenever I held it in my hand, I just couldn't seem to find a comfortable grip on it, causing it to slip out and cut me instead of the tree I was aiming at.
It was frustrating, and I asked why the Nine Color Purifying Elemental Body Manual didn't have weapon arts. The response was that it did indeed have weapon art, but they were useless to me.
Why? Because my talent for them was abysmal. Which was also why I wasn't getting any feedback when I used the knife.
If the average person had a ten in terms of weapon talent, mine was five. Training with them was a waste of time if I wanted to be combat proficient.
I hadn't believed it, of course. How can you be that bad with weapons to the point that I would be better off punching things instead? So, I tried it out and as a result ended up nearly taking my hand off.
On the flip side, my talent for body martial arts was insanely high. I had been incorrect in my previous assessment of the manual showing me where exactly I missed a step. The manual remained static throughout, it was me who was finding the mistakes and correcting them.
The lack of feedback I was getting from the knife wasn't because the manual decided that it wasn't going to help me out with weapons. It was because the manual hadn't been offering me feedback to begin with. It was my talent.
The manual recommended the most optimal training method after it finds your talent, it was why it had to bind to you; there was no way for it to find your talent otherwise. As for the actual progress in training? That was all thanks to your effort and talent.
For example, if I had a talent with knives the manual would recommend I slash at a tree for a few hours a day, give me some basic stances to practice with, and let my talent take it from there.
However, since I had an unarmed talent, it told me to go punch a tree with some basic stances for fighting unarmed. The little nudges I had been getting for the past few months, the ways I knew my stances were off, all of that had come from me and my talent telling me what was incorrect.
It also explained why I always cut myself when I tried cooking back home, and in this world too, when I gutted a fish. My talent has and always will be shit when it comes to weapons. Though with enough training hopefully, I can chop an onion without cutting myself.
After that realization, I accepted defeat and continued to train with my body rather than weapons. All of this is to say that I couldn't use weapons in the future and the fact that the spear didn't injure me when it broke was luck.
While I thought about that and went over the battle in my head, I disposed of the bodies by dumping them into the river.
I watched it carry the bodies away before changing my shirt and walking over to where I first saw the goblins. It wasn't hard to find what I was looking for, tracks. The goblins left nice imprints on the soft ground with their feet, leaving a clear path for me to follow.
I smirked as I started following the tracks backward, hoping that I was both incorrect and correct in my guess.
I have seen and read a lot of stories with goblins in them, too many to count, and there is usually a consistent theme in those works. Goblins gather and camp in packs.
It was completely based on fantasy knowledge, for all I know the things I just killed were very far away from goblins in terms of behavior.
Maybe it was just those three, maybe they happened to wander by the river for a drink and there was no other threat, no camp, nothing nearby that I needed to worry about.
In that case, I would have spent the rest of the day wasting time, wandering through the woods, looking for something that didn't exist.
But if I was right? If by some chance, these were goblins and they followed behavior similar to what I was familiar with? Then I needed to find them now, while it was still daylight and the tracks were fresh.
So I followed them the best I could, making sure to keep an eye on the time and where I was in relation to the town. They went northeast, following the river past the town. The ground was wet because of how close the river was, making it easy to follow their path.
After a few hours, just when I was about to call it a day because the sun was getting too low for my liking, the winding tracks I had been following reached the edge of the forest into a clearing by the river.
I got down into a crouch, slowly and carefully making my way to the edge of the forest, letting the shadows of the trees hide me as I observed the clearing.
I felt myself grin in vindication as I looked over and saw a camp full of goblins. There were about fifteen or so milling about and doing chores. Some were tending to a fire in the center, others were pitching tents and sharpening sticks. Others brought bits of meat around and offered them to those working.
What drew my attention the most though was the big goblin seated on a makeshift throne of wood, a steel sword leaning up against the throne. It had on human clothes, a dark blue cloak around its shoulders, and a crown of animal bones on its ugly head.
I am going to guess that it's a hobgoblin. The fact that it seemed to have an actual weapon as opposed to the sticks every other one was carrying was the most concerning thing to me.
Suddenly, a hunter party of about six goblins burst into the clearing, shouting and screaming as they heaved their prize over their shoulders. The other goblins cheered and rushed over to help, glee filling their ugly faces and dread filling mine as I saw what it was.
It was a human. They were bound and beaten up to a bloody mess, but I could tell it was a human from here, even in the growing dark of the forest. Even worse, they were alive. I saw them wiggle and thrash against their bonds as the other goblins went to restrain them.
That's not good. Not good at all. I was going to try and plan this out a little more. Try and maybe pick them off one by one over the course of a few days, maybe even let them gather some more food and steal it.
All of that had to go out the window now. I couldn't sit here and do nothing as someone got dragged into the goblin camp, presumably to get eaten for dinner.
I wanted to go out and fight, to go and save them, but I held back. I can't go out now, it would be suicide, and we would both end up dying. But I needed to do something, something that would buy me time before the goblins decided it was dinner time. But what could I do?
My thoughts about just saying fuck it and rushing in there, grabbing the person, and running like hell were interrupted when the hobgoblin made a noise, silencing all the others.
It slowly rose to its feet and lumbered its way over to the captive, before hefting its hand and gesturing to a deer's corpse that was by the fire. The hobgoblin said something, causing the goblins to let out a disappointed sound before carrying the human over to a tent and leaving them there.
The hob let out a sound, one that I could only describe as ear-grating, before sitting back down on its throne, right in front of the tent where the human was being kept. The goblins quickly got busy, ripping the deer apart and cooking it over the wooden spears they had been carving earlier.
I let out a sigh of relief as I saw that. They were eating the deer first, giving me much-needed time to figure out a plan. I can't fail here, I won't fail here.
This is why I've been training: to protect people and ensure I'm never powerless again. If this was the universe's way of testing me, then I'm going to pass with flying colors.