Chapter 30 - Test ride

Day 42

It didn't take long for Wolfgang to come over from the other side of the obstacle course. On his head he was sitting a big grey rabbit, with a horn?

"Ahmm Luna, I don't know if you noticed, but there is a horn growing out of Mr Floppy's forehead."

  "Oh course, he evolved and is a unicorn rabbit now. Mr Floppy is the best!"

When Luna said that, the rabbit immediately flew over to her. Luna hugged her rabbit started patting his head. Neo decided, it would be best for his sanity not to think about the rabbit too much.

"Whatever, he's your mount."

  "He's the best mount!"

"Sure. So how do I control Wolfgang?"

  "Oh, that's easy, just focus on him and think about looking through his eyes."

"Ok, Wolfgang I want you to stay cool. I will try something and maybe you can learn some things from that experience."

Then Neo did what Luna said, it was so easy. A moment later, he found himself in control of Wolfgang's body. He could feel the weregoblin was still in there with him. It felt good to be able to move the body again, to breath and feel the grass below his feet. Neo hadn't known how much he missed this feeling, to be alive. When he focused on the dungeon core, he still was able to use all of his functions. He was able to see what was happening everywhere and even to command his creatures. He looked for the goblins mana and noticed he was able to use it. Furthermore, he still had the connection to his core and could use the mana regeneration. The mana pool of the goblin was pretty small and not enough to even use most of the intermediate level spells. But with the connection and regeneration, he could endlessly spawn low level techniques. Then he thought about something and a smile appeared on his face.

"Ok Luna, it worked. I want to give this body a test run. Maybe Wolfgang can learn something from it. Follow me to the arena."

He started walking over, the way wasn't long, the buildings were on the same floor.

  "You want to fight, cool! Luna wants to see what it looks like, if an arch mage is throwing spells around. The power of the golems, kind of surprised me."

"No, I'm not planning to use spells, otherwise it would be a pretty one sided fight. Over the years, I trained a lot of warrior techniques. When I was doing experiments, or training new spells, I sometimes teleported to a dungeon and made a run at it as a warrior. The exercise and the different way to do things helped me a lot to relieve stress."

  "Wow, I didn't know you could use fighter techniques. So who do you want to fight?"

"The hobgoblins."

  "All of them?"

"All of them!"

When they arrived, Neo used some of his remaining orichalcum to create a sword for himself. Then he ordered the 80 hobgoblins to attack him.

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Twenty of them immediately shot their arrows at him, another twenty, equipped with shields and spears moved towards him while staying in formation. The rest had axes and started running in his direction.

Neo smiled and created a Water Shield to block the arrows. Then he increased his strength with Ogre Strength and used Iron Skin and Haste. In addition, he activated his life magic with Regeneration and his death magic with Aura of Weakness. At last, he improved his sword by using Flaming Edge and Windseeker on it. Most people had problems using more than one technique at the same time, for him it was easy to use eight, especially these low level ones.

When the first of the hobgoblins arrived in front of him, Neo cut him in two with one swing of his sword. The goblins surrounded him and started to attack from multiple directions, but he was a lot faster and stronger than them. Their steel armor and shields could've been just as well been made of paper. His red glowing sword cut through their weapons, their armor, their shields and at last, their bodies. From time to time, some of the goblins landed some hits on him, but his Iron Skin reduced the damage and Regeneration healed the wounds in moments. Actually, the more serious injuries he got, came from overextending Wolfgang's body. But the Regeneration took care of that too.

Neo enjoyed himself, it had been to long since he felt the rush of a battle. Sure, they were just goblins, but with his current limitations and their numbers, he had to give it all in this fight. In addition, they were just dungeon creatures, so he didn't have to feel bad about killing them. Then, while he was distracted by this thoughts for a moment, one of the goblins managed to his hit his neck with an axe. Neo was stunned for a moment, the goblin had severed his spinal cord and he no longer felt the rest of his body. Out of pure instinct, he casted a Fire Bolt, a spell he didn't need to use any gestures or incantations for.

One second later, the last 28 goblins fell to the floor. Each of them had a hole burned through his skull. Neo needed two more seconds, until his regeneration took care of his injury and he could move his arms and legs again. He was kind of embarrassed to be wounded for a moment and that he had to use a spell to save himself. At had been to long since he had been in a fight he thought. His obsessive focus on creating a dungeon made him a little bit rusty. He decided to have a fight in his dungeon at least once a month.

  "Awesome, wow Luna is speechless. You're the best. Even Mr Floppy is applauding you!"

Neo looked at his little fairy. She was right, the rabbit was clapping his front paws. Then Wolfgang's body finished his regeneration. Neo immediately let go of all of the techniques and left the weregoblin's body.

"Luna, what would've happened if this blow had killed me?"

  "Oh, you would've just been ejected out of his body and Wolfgang as a boss monster would've re-spawned at your dungeon core in 24 hours."

"That's good to know. Maybe, I've overreacted a little with the fireball. I was little worried there a for a second, well mainly I was embarrassed to be heavily wounded by a goblin. It has been a long time since something like that happened."

Neo shifted his focus back to Wolfgang.

"Wolfgang, were you able to focus on the fight and learn the techniques I used?"

    "Yes master."

"Good, keep the sword. I want you to train Haste and Windseeker for the next weeks."

   "Mr Floppy wants to learn battle techniques too!"

Neo looked back at the rabbit. It was nodding his head. Neo thought about is for a moment, but the rabbit was nice enough to applaud him for his fight. So he shrugged his shoulders and thought, why not. He created a skill book, Flaming Aura. Together with the rabbits fire breath it should improve its fighting capabilities.

"Ok, let's try if he can learn a technique from a skill book, like the shamans did."

The rabbit flew over and used its paw to open the book. A few seconds later, he activated the Flaming Aura and a burning rabbit started to zip through the air in his arena. Maybe, Luna had been right and some day the rabbit really started to hunt and eat wolves.

Neo re-spawned the arena goblins and ordered them to fight again the next day. Before he went to back to his dungeon setup and the ceiling of his ninth floor he had a look at Wolfgang. To be able to move inside a boss monster's body and show him skills and battle tactics, would be a great bonus for the future. He'd have to look later, if there was some kind of research, so that he could do the same for named monsters.

Then it was time to go back to work.