My eyes shot open as I hopped to my feet, dagger in hand. It felt as if a horde of goblins was coming in my direction.
Could they be coming after me?
It was a possibility.
Although weaker, goblins had the same nerve endings as me in their feet, if I moved, they'd be able to sense me at a close distance. If I had to make an estimate, there were roughly around twenty of them.
With each core going for about 150 zencoin, plus the cores that I had on hand now, if I was somehow able to kill all these goblins, then I could earn more than what I receive in a month at this school. I would make roughly about, 3600 zencoins whereas I received 2410 zencoins monthly.
I wasn't alone in this dungeon. There were other students competing with me inside this dungeon, and the only monsters here were goblins.
Dungeons weren't popular among the first-year students and the upper-classes won't bother with a low ranked goblin dungeon, so I didn't have to worry too much about other students.
Why would a 16-year-old, someone just discovering the various pleasures of life, want to spend their weekend or after-school hours inside a dungeon?
Coupled with the fact that they were just told they were special. They just awakened their special skills, and they were told that they were in the top 5% of the human race. Not only that, but they were accepted into the top hero academy in the world.
Their futures were set.
They were in a school that gave them a generous sum of money every month. They could go shopping or hang out in a cafe with their friends. Some could go back to their dorms with their significant others, and with limited monitoring from the school, who knows what they could get up to.
While others could simply be spending their time inside their dorm rooms, with their friends playing a VR game or just chatting about which boy or girl they have a crush on.
Only a select few students would be diligent enough to be training their bodies and sharpening their skills at a time like this.
Looking at this situation, some might blame the school. With demons running rampant and the human race on the verge of extinction, how could they allow humanity's greatest weapons to behave like this?
Is this really the best academy in the world?
The answer was yes.
What the students didn't know was that at the end of this paradise, hell was what awaited them.
Hell was what awaited them, and this school would be the transportation that will carry them there. That is part of the reason why I came to this dungeon to be reborn. I wanted to be among the few students who were ready for what was to come.
There was a reason why the demon king himself was worried about the students at this academy. The reason why is that this academy produces monsters unlike anything the demon race has ever seen before.
...
I couldn't run from this.
With my dagger in hand, I activated my shadow cloak ability.
My plan was to ambush them.
The area of the dungeon where I was sleeping was spacious, which was why I chose to sleep here in the first place. But the path leading to this spacious area was especially narrow, even more so than the rest of the dungeon.
Only a single goblin could walk through the path, and even then, it was only if they were walking sideways. In short, this was the perfect place to ambush a horde of goblins.
Activating my shadow cloak skill, I stood at the entrance of the narrow path, waiting for the first goblin to emerge. It took only a few minutes for the tiny green creature to emerge.
The first thing I noticed was how frantic the goblin was. It was running with no care for its surroundings. Its pupils were dilated, and I could hear it breathing heavily. This was a clear sign of fear.
It was afraid of something.
The moment the goblin reached the exit, I thrust my dagger forward, piercing through the goblin's skull and killing it with one hit.
I had done some enhancements to my blade, allowing me to pierce through the goblin's thick skull. Using my appraisal eyes, I realized something. A goblin's skull had a tensile strength of 1000 MPa. For reference, that was roughly the tensile strength of most high carbon steel.
This was the reason why you need beast weapons, soul weapons, or other specially crafted weapons to even fight against most monsters. Taking this in mind, I realized that it shouldn't have been possible for me to use a piece of rock to break the goblin's skull.
Using my appraisal eyes and the analysis function of my skill, I did a thorough research on the rock. That was when I found out the rock was actually made of galcamite. Galcamite was a special type of material used to create many high-powered machinery.
It had a high resistance against heat, plus it was extremely hard. After analyzing the galcamite, I was able to recreate it with my transmutation ability and forged a new weapon to fight against the goblins.
The blade was mostly steel, but its edge and point were lined with galcamite, making it jet black in color. I pulled the dagger from the goblin's skull, allowing the dead creature to collapse to the ground. At the same time, more goblins appeared.
They, too, seemed frantic, as if something was chasing them. Using the darkness as my cloak, I drove my dagger into their heads in one fluid motion. Soon, their bodies began to pile up in the narrow passage.
But still, there were more goblins coming through the narrow path. They were forced to climb over the mountain of corpses that covered the entrance of the narrow path.
One particular rotund-looking goblin climbed atop the corpse hill with a battleaxe in hand. I readied myself, expecting the goblin to attack, but just then, a scaly hand emerged from the darkness and ripped through the goblin's chest from behind.