As they were resting, Edel stood up in alarm and growled at the trees in the distance. It startled him into a coughing fit, but he soon recovered, getting ready for another fight.

He didn't have to wonder what it was when a large and muscular goblin broke through the foliage. It stared at the two of them for a moment before turning its head and yelling something in an unknown language. He didn't wait for it to finish speaking, and teleported underneath its neck, his claws moving before he disappeared.

The goblin warrior was strong, but it was still a goblin. Heck, he didn't know if the three tailed lizard would have been able to avoid this one. His claws cut upwards of the goblin's neck, barely meeting any resistance.

The goblin cried out loud in that moment, its voice drowned out by the lack of air and the blood running down its neck. It turned its head only to see him teleport away. Two more slightly leaner goblins rushed forward as the first grasped at its neck, falling on one knee. It tried to speak to the other goblins but no coherent sound would leave its mouth.

The two goblins didn't sit staring, opting to charge at him, screaming. If they weren't such bloodthirsty little demons, he might have felt bad about this.

Edel ran up to meet the two goblins and he waited till a few seconds before they met. He wasn't strong enough to take them in a head-on fight, but thankfully, he didn't need to. Copying the same strategy he used on the large goblin, he slashed the throat of the goblin opposite to the one Edel chose to attack.

Before the goblin died, however, it managed to score a hit on him, throwing him a few feet away. He couldn't help but cough, barely able to stand straight. That was the last action the goblin took, however, as it fell to the ground.

The goblin on Edel's side met a more brutal end. Edel was large enough to reach the goblin's waist, and this time she opted to go straight for the neck. The goblin tried to fight her off, but she accepted the blows to deal hers. In the end both goblins were down a few seconds later.

Thankfully he hadn't eaten much from the lizard, otherwise he would have thrown it up and that was something he didn't wish to experience. As if to make up for the nasty blow he got near the end of the fight, the system rewarded him with another level up. Well, that was fast.

This level increased his body by two points and his mind by one. He had a good understanding of how his attributes increased by now. If he depended more on his body for gaining the experience, he improved there. If he used a skill either his mind or spirit would improve. He had no idea what differentiated the two, but he was pretty sure spirit increased the amount of ether he had to work with while mind increased his control. Then one of those two also affected how potent his ether was.

He wasn't sure of the control before because normally he attributed that to leveling his manipulation skills. Lately, however, he noticed that his ether was more responsive in a way that had nothing to do with manipulation. It made teleportation much easier, and with enough practice he was able to keep two locations in focus, which had been what was messing up his second teleportation if he used the skill too fast.

A third accurate one in a row was still in the works, however. Right now he wanted to reach the level that caused Edel to get so much stronger. Considering how every monster this deep in the forest was incomparably stronger than the other parts, he knew there was something, even if he hadn't seen Edel's body grow stronger a month or two ago. Was it three? Keeping a mental tally these days was too taxing on his will, and he wasn't keen on marking them down.

Walking up to Edel, he noticed that he'd already recovered from the goblin's blow. That had certainly been a lot faster than he expected, even with his new title.

If there was a goblin camp this deep in the forest, that was a scary thought. Then again, he doubted any goblin camp would have survived in the lower parts of the forest if Edel had been hunting for them.

After the fight they rested for half an hour before continuing further inside the forest. Edel didn't push as hard as before, opting for a more cautious pace. As they walked they met a lone goblin resting its back on a large tree. It didn't have the chance to scream for help before he teleported in front of it and put an end to its life.

If he kept up with that pace he was certain he would be hitting level 15 before the end of the day, maybe even level 16 if he was lucky. Taking the role of an assassin was definitely a choice he was liking more and more.

Dealing his damage up close and personal was still something he needed to get used to, but it did the trick very well. Unfortunately it also meant he was becoming a one-trick-pony, someone who relied on only one trick to defeat his enemies and was relatively weak otherwise.

He was hoping the coming levels helped him break out of that mold, or allowed him to use Spatial Rend outside a quiet zone. He failed to use that skill again and again and again, and not for lack of trying. The space outside the quiet zones was too strong to be ripped apart by his will. He couldn't even make a small crack, let alone tear the space, and the enemies occupying that space, apart.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

He was so desperate for something, he emptied out his ether multiple times while they were resting and now he was recovering what he'd consumed. He expended all of his ether trying to cast Spatial Rend in normal space, finding it difficult to use all of his ether at once.

But even when he ran out of ether, he couldn't find anything after it. There was simply nothing for him to use. It made him wonder how he'd managed to use that much ether at once, let alone essence he couldn't even feel inside of him.

He wanted to keep trying to find out more about it, but common sense and increasing numbers of goblins held him back.

They took care of another ten goblins, only three of which had been together. Most of them seemed to be resting nearby, and once they even accidentally attracted another goblin that came to investigate the loud noise the goblin let out when it hit the tree. Seriously, sometimes Edel didn't know how to hold back...

Not all of the goblins they fought were strong, which was good, because he didn't know how they could handle dozens to hundreds of evolved goblins. A few minutes later, they discovered the goblin camp.

Edel made finding them easy, which he knew it was not. The goblin camp was situated in the base of a small cliff and they had rudimentary structures built up. He would still struggle to call them civilized as he watched the goblins feast on the carcasses of dozens of dead animals without a care in the world.

He wondered how they were going to take out the entire camp, when he saw Edel take a deep breath and howl. Almost instantly over thirty pairs of eyes landed on them, and who knew however many from outside the camp that had heard them.

Not for the first time today he wondered if Edel was doing this on purpose... thankfully she didn't charge ahead because he didn't know how he could stop her if she did. The goblins were all ready to charge towards them when a large obese goblin twice the size of the others made its way out of its tent. That goblin wasn't built like a warrior, and with a strangely shaped wooden staff in its hands, he would bet eight of his nine lives that it was a mage of some kind.

Well, with his adventures since he'd come to this world he might not have all nine of his lives intact. In fact he was willing to bet that unless Edel had something up her sleeve, he was losing whatever lives he had left here, today.

The goblin mage said something in the guttural language he now recognized as the goblin's tongue, and ten of the strongest looking goblins headed towards them. Edel looked at him and motioned to follow as she ran away. Clearly she had a plan, and although he doubted she'd gone after that strong of a camp before, she'd destroyed her fair share of them.

Kiel ran as fast as he could, barely keeping up with Edel with sparse teleports when he got too far behind. It didn't take them long to reach the site where they'd fought the three goblins almost an hour ago, and soon they passed even that. As for the goblins, they were faster than they seemed but were unable to catch up to them. That didn't mean he was confident they could escape them. Maybe the weaker goblins, sure, but he wouldn't underestimate the stronger variants.

As they were running away he barely had half a mind to pay attention to Edel, so he couldn't help but feel alarmed as he felt a massive amount of ether in the air. He looked behind him to see who would be casting what and where, when he saw Edel had stopped running away. She'd turned towards the dozen goblins and her eyes glowed white as the amount of ether she controlled doubled.

A sudden flash and a loud crack sounded a second later. As his eyes adjusted, he noticed that of the ten goblins that were chasing them only one was still on its feet and the ground around it had lightning coursing through it. He didn't know Edel could do that, but in turn she seemed to be on her last legs. Opposite to that, the goblin in front of them was recovering quickly and soon it would be upon them.

He didn't know if the rest of the goblins were dead or dying, but if he didn't deal with this one before it recovered, they would never know. Edel wasn't in shape to fight, so he ran at it before it could recover its movement fully.

He ran for half the distance, circling to meet it at an angle. When he saw it was putting up a guard towards him, even as its arms trembled, he teleported next to it from the opposite direction. His claws met its flesh and barely pierced through its thick skin. He aimed at its neck, but even though it could barely move, it still managed to use its jaw to block an otherwise lethal attack.

He didn't let that dishearten him, however, as he teleported again, this time beneath its legs. He didn't want to do this, but he had no other choice. As a man, he felt deeply ashamed of what he was about to do...

The goblin wore fur-trimmed shorts that barely protected its nether region. His claw came back red, and he winced internally. He teleported before he saw the goblin's reaction that had now fallen to the ground and was howling in pain.

He tried wiping off his paw on the short grass and dirt on the ground, but no matter how hard he rubbed, it seemed like the blood wouldn't go away. He felt disgusted with himself and with what his claws had touched.

While he was trying to wipe his paws on the ground, Edel put the poor goblin out of its misery. Whoops, didn't mean to let it suffer.

Dropping what he was doing now, he went and slashed the throat of the rest of the goblins, making sure they were dead.

At the end of the fight, a much welcome notification awaited him, informing him of a level up. This one, surprisingly, was accompanied by more than one message.

Name - Kiel

Level - 15

Titles - Traveler, Unyielding, Ritualist

Body - 22

Mind - 24

Spirit - 31

Skills - Body Adaptation (Lvl 10) [Max], Climbing (Lvl 7), Ether Sense (Lvl 10) [Max], Affinity Sense (Lvl 10) [Max], Spatial Manipulation (Lvl 10) [Max], Spatial Rend (Lvl 2), Spatial Shift (Lvl 10) [Max], Ether Manipulation (Lvl 6)

His body increased by two, which was becoming a more common increase lately, and his mind by one. If that had been all, however, he would have continued happily with his day as before. No, what gave him pause was the message after it.

You have reached level 15! You have gained one trait and one skill point.