IT watched the sleeping, and slightly snoring, goblins for a while. They were both slightly larger than his tier two golems, which made them quite a threat. While the golems would most likely gain the upper hand in numbers, the goblins had sharp claws and their bodies looked quite sturdy. A golem made of simple earth would easily get destroyed after a few dedicated punches.

The problem was apparent. IT had no way of knowing if a whole tribe or a small group of them was lingering around in the area. While the goblins would not necessarily be interested in killing IT, they would steal the food and most likely claim the cave if they got the upper hand. A threat that need to be taken care off. Killing those two sleeping goblins would be a easy thing to do.

However, IT had another idea. Goblins were stupid. Or at least they thought they were the smart, which opened up some possibilities. IT sent out a golem to get a large stick, big enough to be handled like a club by one of the little creatures. After gathering six larger golems around, IT woke the goblins up.

They both immediately panicked. One ran ahead of the other, trying to get past the golems, the other kicking him in the legs from behind to sacrifice him and use him as a stepping stone. Luckily the line of defensive golems held strong and shoved the goblins back into the cave.

IT launched a fireball spell right in the middle of the two creatures and used telepathy to calm them down. “Enough!” Scared out of his life, one of the two charged into the pile of food to hide, while the other cowered down and hid his face in his hands, hoping nobody would see it. “Get out of the food or I will kill you, goblin!” Slowly the goblin climbed out of the pile. IT noticed the little bugger stole some fruits and hid them in the far too large trousers he wore.

The nerve to steal in this situation. Impressively stupid. “Sit down, both of you.” The goblins were confused, sitting down before the golems. They were still eying the exit behind, just waiting for a possibility to exit this deathtrap. IT would not let them. While they had charged the line before, one golem had taken quite a bit of damage. Deep scratches and one arm even broke off afterwards. IT hid that golem further back just in case. The creatures mustn’t get aware of their own strength.

“Tell me your names.” The goblins looked really confused. “We not have names. Don’t eat me. Eat him.” - “No, eat him, eat him!” After they both started trying to sacrifice one another, a fireball made them stop again. Damn controlling them would cost a lot of mana. “I am not eating you. What do you like the most in the world?” The goblins were dumbfounded by the question and after a while they both answered. “Apples. I like apples.” - “No, stupid. Apples are no good! Females are better.” - “Huh. Yes, females are better. What about meat?” - “Meat is good. Hard to get though.”

While the two slowly drifted off in a goblin discussion on what they liked the most about females, IT decided to name them Meets and Opples. Not very original, but they were goblins, who cared? They were not as awesome as [Dwyane] number one to ten or the [Destroyer Brothers] after all. After informing the two dorks, a golem threw the club towards them.

“Opples, Meets. One of you will be the leader. Take the club and beat up the other one. The winner is the goblin chieftain of the cave and pile of fruits!” Humans would have taken a few seconds to discuss the morality of this situation. Not the goblins. IT had hardly finished explaining, when they threw themselves at the club, kicking and scratching for control. After a while one of them gained the upper hand and beat the other up with the club. So simple minded, it was beautiful.

“Me chieftain now, hahaha!” Seems like Meets had won. Opples did not seem to be hurt too much however, aside from a few bruises he looked rather fine. Apparently goblins were more sturdy than one would think. IT continued to influence the actions of the chieftain. “Gratulations. The golems gather food for you now, but you should really make your minion work for his share, right?” With a unsure look on the face Meets replied. “Of course. I know that already, I am the smart chieftain after all. I will make him work all sorts of things. Like… like…” - “Like digging?” - “Yes, yes digging! Lots of digging, make a huuuuuge cave.”

The mighty goblin chieftain then continued to hit his new minion and made him dig, completely forgetting that they had been begging for their lives just minutes ago. With the goblin problem solved, IT continued the training process. Hours and hours passed and progress was soon seen. Purchasing another growth upgrade, IT grew in size quite a bit again, the legs grew more sturdy, but still looking like a rather big tree branch without leaves.

[Profile] - [Magical Being] - [Level 8]

[Energy: 4.756/5.000]

[Power Level: 56]

[Size: 7] - [Upgrade: 5.000 E.]

[Enhance Body] - [Remaining Points: 0]

[Eyesight: 5: Max.]

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[Legs: 3]

[Stomach: 700: Max.]

[Wings: 0]

[Mana: 743/7.000]

[Mana Regeneration: 3 per second]

The Earth Magic had also made a jump the stage 3 and the increased level brought faster mastery of other spells. While the golems were not quite upgraded yet, the cultivation spell finally had hit full mastery. After spamming it so much, if felt like passing a huge relieve.

[Summon: Earth Golem II.] - [Upgrade: Free]

[Earth Magic - Mastery 93.80%]

[Manacost: 250] - [Upkeep: 10 mana per minute]

[Servant created with mana, infused to the earth element.]

[Cultivation: First Earthly Layer] - [Upgrade: Free.]

[Earth Magic - Mastery 100.00%]

[Uses 1 Mana over 10 seconds to create 2 Mana]

[Restriction: You Cannot Move.]

Immediately upgrading the spell, the cultivation felt entirely different. Instead of a cancellation of the whole incomplete process, the mana now flowed continuously, generating a lot more energy while only having to adjust the process a bit with new mana. The improvement also showed in the numbers.

[Cultivation: Second Earthly Layer] - [Upgrade: Free.]

[Earth Magic - Mastery 00.00%]

[Uses 1 Mana over 1 second to create 5 Mana]

[Restriction: You Cannot Move.]

With this spell the mana regeneration increased to a full 8 per second, while IT cultivated, opening up new possibilities. through the drastic increase in mana regeneration IT reached the next level quite soon.

[You have reached Level 9.]

[Evolutionary Options were unlocked.]

The information that had formed inside of IT’s head, needed organising. Understand all this new evolutionary stuff was hard. Suffering through headache after headache, trying to decipher the details and gather all the information available for this new paths really made IT wish to just go back to summoning golems for fun. Luckily the studying process only lasted for a couple of minutes, but IT hated studying a lot. Such a hassle, really.

[Unlocked Evolutionary Options:]

[Dark Summoner] - [Sorcerer of Doom] - [Elementalist Cultivator]

[Dark Summoner]:

The path of the dark summoner had been a cursed one throughout the ages. The ability to control hundreds or demons, skeletons or other beasts and send them into battle without a care in the world made them a truly inhumane threat. While not all Dark Summoners fell to the darker side and enslaved their country, most were still feared and often killed for posing a truly significant threat. Dark Summoners free themselves from a normally mana costly contract between their minions and acquire a hive mind, allowing for better control and domination.

Passive Skill: [Rebirth: Dungeon Stone].

[Sorcerer of Doom]

Literally the Doom of the battlefield. Imagine a fireball, as big as a large house clashing into your armies, burning everyone alive. Now imagine this fireball flying out of the enemy lines every few seconds. This and more is the power of a Sorcerer of Doom. He who is known as the siege engine of death, reeking havoc wherever he goes. Fighting on open field? No problem, drown the enemies in fire. Sieging a castle? No problem, here take this earthquake. Fighting on open sea? Fun thing those ice spikes shooting out of the water, piercing your opponents ships.

Passive Skill: [Flame Horizon]

[Elementalist Cultivator]

Cultivation is training. Training is cultivation. Those who have lived on this path truly have acquired strong powers. Growing in age and living far longer than all others, some even acquired immortality. But only few have the god given talent to cultivate the elements. A fist that carries fire, a kick that splits the earth appart. Speed of lighting and a heart of ice. Who would not like to knock down a wall with the power of the earth, reshaping stone to whatever one's heart desired? Or control the sea, raising swimming castles of ice to travel on just to rise to the heavens on a whim to fly?

Passive Skill: [Bending the Elements]

IT read and re-read and re-re-re-read the three upgrades over and over. All of them sounded quite awesome, which one should IT pick? A difficult decision indeed. Sadly there was another problem IT had to take care of, before that. A really annoying thing.

[Evolutionary Progress Locked.]

[Requirements to unlock: Level 10. Size 10. Legs: 10. Wings: 5]

IT knew just investing into mana regeneration had been too good to be true. Now IT had to level up like crazy to buy all those points for legs and wings. Great. And without mana regeneration increase after every level too! Hopefully the cultivation spell would help out and level fast…

After thinking and puzzling about IT’s fate a few golems had not returned. Apparently it had started to rain outside. Earth Golems were apparently rather weak to rain. Good to know that beforehand. Summoning a few more to replace the lost ones, they all started to dig into the cave more. Since the whole thing increased in size downwards, the goblins had started to light fires, making the cave smoke rather badly.

Instructing them to dig a few holes into the ceiling for the smoke to leave, IT summoned a few more golems to help the goblins out. Thus the golem spell reached 100% mastery as well. Quickly upgrading the spell, IT received the next stage for creating golems.

[Summon: Earth Golem III.] - [Upgrade: Free]

[Earth Magic - Mastery 00.00%]

[Manacost: 600] - [Upkeep: 25 mana per minute]

[Servant created with mana, infused to the earth element.]

Creating one of those outside the cave, IT noticed the size was just about the same as the friendly giants. He would really be impressed by IT now, even without revealing the ability to talk with telepathy. Happily IT returned to the cave in order to eat something. The cave now had a smaller food supply, since the chieftain apparently did nothing other than eating all day while Opples stole the food behind his back. At least enlarging the whole thing worked rather well. There were now two rooms, each about the size of the initial cave with a third in progress.

At some parts of the cave, the goblins had found crystals and rocks that looked shiny, but IT had no idea what that was so IT just left them alone. The living quarters for the chieftain consisted of a large tent, if you could call the huge rug held by a couple of twigs that. Worm eaten, brown and they looked like they were stolen as well.

The other “tents” were more a stack of branches under which they slept. Barely any comfort. IT really had to teach them a couple of things, they were so primitive.

Wait. Had there always been that many goblins around?

Just what was going on?..