Winter came, just as expected. I would rather stay inside my shack, preferably with Axi, but no luck. Axi is outside hunting, and I’m not going to procrastinate and wait for spring. Winter is a good enough time to move forward with my projects. I sigh. Maybe I should revoke Windy’s fucking rights and bring women here? No. Axi still comes every few days with hunted prey. She is promiscuous enough to replace quantity with quality.

The problem is that I’m not super passionate about my work. Building a Soul Blade or creating a golem seems neat, but at the end of the day, it’s just another job. Something I’m motivated about but not going to spend all my time doing. So, in the evenings, left alone by Axi and Anastasia, I think about my current situation, my dreams, and my goals. Do I want to return to Earth? No. No way. On Earth, I was just another average guy, or even less than that.

My main weakness is that I’m not very charismatic or good at social interactions. Confidence and being gregarious are practically the two most important traits for a human, I think. You can be a lazy idiot, but confidence will still get you high enough in life by pretending you are not.

I lack both. This may seem strange, but my actual confindence comes from the fact that I'm the smartest goblin around. This led to me becoming one of the strongest, at least until Axi killed that snake back then. However, I know my limits. I'm mostly posturing to intimidate others.

My situation here is way better than on Earth. I’m a boss and have a small harem. Sure, Axi is kind of ugly for a human. Anastasia is not the prettiest around either, but I prefer a nice body anyway. As for returning to Earth, I don’t even have a clue how reincarnation happened or how to reverse it. There is no point in even dwelling on it.

Anyway, my lack of charisma indirectly led to my second trait. I’m utterly evil. What is evil? What is good? I think the best answer, and what people think about these terms in daily life, is a benefit to their society. You killed someone? Did that benefit your society? You are a hero. Did it hinder it? You are a criminal. You can twist like that in any activity. Rape? If there were only a dozen people remaining on Earth and only one woman who didn’t want to have children, I think most would approve of rape. After all, better that than extinction. Charity? What if you give food to the children of enemies who are going to grow up and kill you? Some would say it’s still fine, but many others would declare you a traitor. Ultimately, only benefits to society matter.

But the point is, why should I care? I didn’t have friends, and my below-average job was not suitable for my education. Society didn’t care too much about me, so why would I care about it and its needs? This is obviously a dangerous way of thinking in hindsight. I think this is the way criminals are born. They no longer have any inhibitions about killing and hurting others. But I didn’t want to die abandoned by everyone or spend the rest of my life in prison. I wanted to have a fine life. Which means that from that moment on, I decided I’m going to be utterly selfish and only care about my own needs and benefits. Obviously, I was smart about it. A single human can’t survive; you need other people, so you need to at least pretend to adhere to standard morality. I may be nice to someone, but that's only because I'm expecting them to return favors. No charity. At that point, I wished I was a psychopath, so I didn’t have to care about pesky feelings. No such luck. In the end, I still care for people close to me.

Anyway, this way of thinking about pursuing personal gain, even at the expense of others, is perceived as utterly evil. Even I know that and agree with it. So, what do I want? Power, companionship, and wealth. Ultimately, being a leader of a tribe is great for me. I can do what I want, and I’m the law. What benefits me benefits the tribe, so I’m never evil. Sure, some goblins may disagree, but then I can just kill them for mutiny or something. I have no one above me to keep me in check. Except for Axi, who is easily led.

For power, I just need to climb tiers. For companionship, I need to advance my whole tribe, preferably to becoming an orc tribe. This would make them smart enough. For wealth, I’m going to learn alchemy, figure out health potions using my vitality mana, and trade them. I’m utterly evil, but more causal evil, not destroying the world evil. Not ambitious evil. After all that, I can just settle somewhere.

This brings other problems. We should have, as a tribe, migrated long ago. Hobs are going farther and farther for hunting, and the number of causalities is rising. Humans are not better. Hopefully, this will convince Anastasia, or at least Axi. We can stay here until spring, but it’s not like monsters will suddenly spawn then. Migrating is inevitable. Both now and in the future. Both Axi and Anastasia proposed ways to increase our power in a kingdom-building way. I thought about it, and it’s simply impossible. To solve the food issue, we would need to farm. This isn’t technically impossible—the opposite, actually—but humans are not going to leave us in peace. If I were a human lord, I would invade and kill everyone. There can be no peace between monsters and the enlightened. I have to always keep watch over my thoughts when thinking about humans. Something or someone, gods probably, made it so that there is always some mistrust between the groups. Add increased experience gains, and any peace would be temporary.

The only other way to build a kingdom is to create more tribes. The problem is that a chieftain of such a tribe would have no incentive to stay loyal. Opposite actually. I could nominate Axi, but I want her in my bed, not far away. Therefore, there will be no kingdom, at least for the foreseeable future.

I place the last part of the prototype of the Soul Blade. This is only a proof of the concept, though. Axi was too busy to help me with something so laborious, so she created only a few of the most detailed pieces, while I created most of the rest, leaving the easiest to goblins. I expect one of three outcomes from this experiment.

The first outcome is that the soul will move through the blade without any resistance. This would be a complete failure.

The second option is that there will be resistance, but my Move Soul skill is high enough to push the soul regardless. This would mean the soul blade could theoretically work, but it would require sophistication and resources unavailable to me.

The third option is that the soul blade will stop the soul or, even better, damage it. Ultimately, I would need to create something like a soul-milling machine. I kill a rabbit and push its soul against the blade. I feel resistance. I smile. It seems it works. I push harder, and the soul slides to the side. This is enough. It works. Creating that machine will be even more laborious, and I will need Axi for that. I may also need to power-level some crafting path goblins, but that’s fine.

If I succeed, this will make Axi practically immortal. I can reincarnate Anastasia as well, but only in a human body. In practical terms, this would be a retirement for her. After that, I just need to figure out how to resurrect someone automatically so I can be immortal as well. This assumes obviously that the body is the reason for dying of old age. I need to observe someone old to make sure, but even if not, resurrecting after getting killed is great anyway. I frown. In the current setup, this means Axi would need to have children with someone else to bring me back. This isn't a problem; no goblin cares about children, but I care about Axi sleeping with someone else.

I sigh. I know this won’t be a problem for Axi. We are not a couple in the traditional sense. She is mine because I’m the chieftain. Well… This is a bit complicated right now, with Anastasia being the nominal chief and Axi fulfilling that role right now while leading goblins and hunting with them. I just need to make sure no male is stronger than me. If someone like that does appear, Axi is going to have sex with that goblin. She won’t think it’s bad or strange; this is goblins' nature. Should I propose to her?

My relationship with Anastasia is even worse. We practically only have sex for procreation. Calling her a part of my harem is prabably too much. Especially now that she mostly stays in the human settlement.

I shake my head. Maybe I can leave my seed with Axi? Regardless, I’m nowhere there with this project, so I can leave it for later.

Satisfied with the progress on the first project, I turn to the second one. The third project is to learn alchemy, and I leave it for later. The second project’s goal is to create a vitality golem.

I have quite a bit of progress here as well. Creating a golem from a dead creature is beyond my skill, but I have actually succeeded with a living one. I overpowered a mouse's Will and placed Vitality Gates, a construct I got from Vitality Buff’s perks. After that, I separated its soul from vitality with a precise strike to not injure vitality flow too much.

The mouse lived for a few minutes and then died. Why? Because without the soul, the animal stopped breathing. This is my biggest problem right now. There are other issues as well, such as keeping the mouse alive even when it is not suffocating, which drains vitality quickly. Faster than I thought it would. Controlling bigger monsters is going to be hard unless I increase efficiency. A second tier monster would probably drain my vitality storage in a dozen minutes.

There is also the obvious problem that a golem without a soul lacks protection from magic. It will be hard for me to maintain Mana Shield around a golem. The golem will also lack protection from vitality magic and any body-related mana types. I'm assuming flesh mana and blood mana exist, but I think it's a reasonable assumption. Their connection to the soul means I need to overpower Will of my experiments to manipulate their vitality, unlike any other mana inside people's bodies.

I plan to use runic tattoos, or maybe even crude scars, to create Mana Shield on my golem, but that will only help a bit. Will decides the strength of a man-made shield. Runic shields' strength depends on the quality of the runes and the material used to create them, so golems' Mana Shield won't be very powerful unless I find a way to create stronger runes.

I shake my head again. Those are problems for later. For now, I concentrate on a dead mouse. I send a trickle of vitality inside and try to move muscle. I know it’s possible, since vitality, to the best of my knowledge, acts as a nerve here. I don’t have any idea how to do it, so it’s hit-and-miss work. Mostly miss. Nearly all miss. I have had some small successes, though, so I think I’m figuring that out. Slowly.

[Anastasia’s POV]

“Hey!”

I jerk up and see Axi’s head at the shack’s entrance. “Axi?” I get up. I was sleeping.

“So… I want a favor.”

“Ok? Tell me.” I reply.

“I want to learn human language. I mean, goblins in the tribe can only talk about hunting, which is boring. I can talk with Smag, but only talking with him gets boring too, so… I thought I could talk with humans.” She says hesitantly.

I smile. “No problem!” I’m not going to teach her myself, at least not everything. Crafting? Yep. “Do you mind spending some time with crafters? I will tell them to teach you, while you can make us some clothes or weapons.”

“Sure.” She nods.

Great. This way, I can steal some of her time. I led her to a circle of women and children sewing clothes and carving spears and arrows.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Hello!” I say this with all the cheerfulness I can muster.

“Lady Anastasia!” They get up and bow. At least some of them. I sigh mentally. Most of them fear me. Especially the new arrivals. I thought I would have a new home with my kind, but it doesn't work. Some are even showing hostility. Only a few of them don’t show fear, but they act so respectfully that it's impossible to befriend them.

“This is Axi.” I point at the goblin. “I want you to teach her language. She will join you here and help, while you should point at things and tell her their names.” Most nod, but they fear Axi as well.

Axi goes forward, and they make space for her. Quite a lot of space. Axi sits down and grabs a piece of wood and a knife. She points at the wood. One of the older girls answers hesitantly while looking at me. I nod.

Sigh. New arrivals don't help. Refugees keep coming, though it's mostly Adam who deals with them. I just stay out of sight.

I walk back, knowing the arrangement should work. I go back to my shack and open up a bottle of liquor. Adam sent another trading party to town last week, bringing some liquor with him. I thought that was stupid, but I see the appeal now. Still a stupid expense, though.

I lay back. I will have the option to reach 2nd tier soon. I finally merged Sneak and Hide skills into Uncommon Stealth. It’s now level 41, and I still have quite a few options for trying to level it up. I didn’t try camouflage and body paint, for example. The class will give me Dexterity, Intelligence and some Vitality, though. Do I want more Dexterity? Not really. The rest of my skills are too far behind. I could maybe push Mana Manipulation. This will give me Affinity, which would make it easier to attune to basic elemental mana types.

I know for sure that this is likely my last advancement. I’m not talented enough to reach the 3rd tier on my own. On the other hand, the tricks Smag showed me helped me with training Mana Manipulation quite a bit.

I think he slowly gets his memories back. This means he may be able to turn me into a goblin. Do I want it? Maybe. It will be easier. Both to live and level up. A tear sneaks down my cheek.

The only other way is to somehow earn enough merit to be forgiven. I thought helping those people was that. Maybe it was, but would they say so before a priest? After all, there’s no spell or perk to determine if you are a good or evil person. Priest can see your status screen, but that doesn't mean much.

[ Smag’s POV ]

Winter came and went. Now, I sit in my shack with Axi and we are waiting for Anastasia. Well… I’m sitting. Axi is giving me a blowjob. I check my status page.

Name: NA

Age: 0

Race: Hobgoblin Grand Shaman

Level:10/20

Strength: 18

Vitality: 35

Endurance: 12

Dexterity: 34

Intelligence: 74

Will: 72

Affinity: 43

Health:185/185

Stamina:84/151

Mana:423/444

Traits

Iron Stomach 25 (Uncommon) – Resistant Stomach, Efficient Stomach

Vitality Mana Affinity 16 (Legendary) – Poison Crusher

Combat skills

Spear Fighting 28 (Common) – Strength I, Strength II

Sneaking 28 (Common) – Silent Walk I, Silent Walk II

Hiding 27 (Common) – Temperate Forest Monster Lore I, Silent Breathing

Tracking 14 (Uncommon) Intelligence I

Strategy 34 (Rare) – Will I, Lieutenants I, Command Range I

Sword Fighting 32 (Common) – Basic Sword Moves, Deflecting I,

Dodging 18 (Common) – Strong Legs I,

Magic Skills

Mana Sense 48 (Uncommon) – Inward Perfection, Resolution I, Vitality Sense, Master of Own Body

Mana Manipulation 48 (Uncommon) – Mana Flow I, Mana Lock I, Rune Casting, Mana Insulation

Vitality Buff 28 (Epic) – Gates I, Gates II,

Vitality Clot 29 (Very Rare) – Sails I, Bigger Clot,

Vitality Bank 22 (Very Rare) – Stealth

Soul Perception 26 (Very Rare) – Decay Sense, Remaining Time

Move Soul 18 (Very Rare) - Grip

Rune Basics 43 (Uncommon) – Basic Runes, Basic Earth Runes, Basic Air Runes,

Transplant Soul 23 (Epic) – Borrowed Vitality

Vitality Mana Control 31 (Legendary) – Vitality Flow I, Vitality Runes,

Crafting Skills

Wood Working 27 (Common) - Mana Wood Reinforcement I, Rune Carving

Fortification Construction 13 (Rare) – Intelligence I

Trap Making 22 (Common) - Will I, Will II

Leadership 26 (Uncommon) – Will I, Loud and Clear

Rune Scribbling 38 (Uncommon) - Rune Scribbling Specialist I, Rune Scribbling Specialist II, Wood Expertise

Bone Working 17 (Common) – Dexterity I

Plotting 25 (Uncommon) – Acting I, Relationships Analyzer I,

Flesh Working 24 (Rare) – Anatomy I

Titles

None

I leveled up three times and got 6 new perks. Sword Fighting options:

Grounded Style

Learn a grounded style of sword fighting.

Sword Dexterity

When fighting with a sword, do so with 30% more Dexterity

Deflecting II

Learn how to deflect attacks even better.

Snake Sword Style

Learn the Snake Sword style of sword fighting.

My current perks were Basic Sword Moves and Deflecting I. I picked Grounded Style, which seemed like a solid, universal option. I will probably reset the skill at some point to learn more styles. For now, learning the sword is a side quest at best.

Next, Vitality Bank.

Efficiency I

Slightly decrease the amount of lost vitality during the transfer.

Autodestruction

Kill marked creatures at will.

Autodestruction is only useful if I want to clean up my traces. Creating the rune in another monster takes a long time, and that creature needs to be subdued anyway. At best, I could use this to create a “slave skill," but the skill only works in my proximity, so escaping would work well. Going back to previous threshold perks, there are More Blood I, which would increase the maximal amount of banks, and Range I. Range I seems the best, since I have enough banks and therefore vitality stored already.

I picked Autodestructtion, hoping for a new rune. Even if it is hard to utilize, it could give me new ideas. To my disappointment, there are no runes, and killing seems to be done via the system. In a way, quite a powerful skill for a stingy system, but as I summarized before, quite useless. I will reset this skill, or more probably, drop it for something else, though not now, as I’m lacking Exp.

Next, Rune Basics. I have wanted to reset this skill, but I didn't since I lack Exp. During the winter, I mostly trained moving muscles via vitality and focused on the soul blade. This increased my cap on the Vitality Mana Control skill significantly, but without hunting often enough, I don’t have maxed skills. I couldn’t afford to reset my skills. Anyway:

Basic Order Runes

Learn the basic order mana runes.

Basic Chaos Runes

Learn the basic chaos mana runes.

Ambient Mana Runes

Learn more about advanced ambient mana runes.

Now, this was an interesting selection. I have already learned some order and chaos runes from books. Actually, none of this was likely to give me much new knowledge. Which option would likely help me the most with the Soul Blade? Either chaos or ambient option. I picked Ambient Mana Runes. I have already tested chaos mana on souls, and it’s not like chaos destroys souls or something. Chaos Mana morphed the soul a bit, but that’s it. It would probably stun or maybe cause amnesia, assuming I could catch someone without a mana shield. Maybe the perk would give me a working option, but to sketch a rune on a soul, ambient mana seems more useful.

Next, Vitality Mana Control. I raised a cap on this skill immensely while trying to control muscles via vitality. High rarity skills seem to require way more Experience Points to level up, however. I think my cap should be around level 40, maybe a bit less, but my actual level is only 31. Regardless, this means I had one perk to pick.

Healer

Place a rune in the body of another creature. As long as the creature does not resist, it will allow you to use vitality mana without interference from their Will.

Vitality Mana Sense

Get better sense for Vitality Mana

Now, these are great perks! As expected from a legendary skill. I wanted them both. Vitality Mana Sense could lead to Vitality Sense, which would be absolutely great. However, after resetting the skill sometime in the future, I’m only going to keep the knowledge, so Healer it is. Frankly, Healer perk is ridiculous as well. It allows me to buff Axi, raising her physical stats to 3rd tier.

That’s overpowered. Most of the rune is actually from ambient mana. I thought that was interesting. Could I remove a portion of it to allow me to bypass Will with another mana type?

After a quick experiment, I figured out how to do the same with ambient mana, mostly by removing all vitality mana parts. This doesn’t help us in any way, though. Normally, wills clash with each other, making cooperation impossible. This rune allows you to co-cast spells, but spells using ambient mana are weak. I have experimented with Axi. We could play with a strand of mana together, but the moment we tugged mana in different directions, the rune failed in its task, and our wills clashed. We also experimented with her earth and fire mana to figure out runes, but with no success yet. Figuring them out would allow a few mages with access to the same mana type to cast spells together. I’m fairly certain there are artillery mages out there using this.

Next, Transplant Soul skill.

Store Soul

Store a soul with a bit of looped vitality mana to keep a soul for months.

Accelerated Gestation

Speed up gestation by using vitality and vitality mana.

I picked Store Soul. Accelerated Gestation is nice, but not as critical. I can’t let Axi’s soul or anyone else's perish before I have a chance to resurrect them.

Lastly, a new Flesh Working skill perks:

Addons

Learn how to add additional limbs to your project without rejection.

Anatomy II

Learn even more about the workings of flesh, including organs.

I have picked Flesh Working to learn how to better utilize Vitality Mana, so I picked Addons. This taught me how to create a stable vitality flow to additional limbs.

This concludes my advancements within the system. As for my projects, I have mostly given up on alchemy for now. I checked the book, and the problem of containment is solved by special bottles. Obviously, there was no recipe for them. Better alchemy requires access to catalyst mana, for example, an enchanted caoldron. You can merge mana this way. For example, you can easily create lava by physically melting stones. Catalyst mana allows you to use symbolic aspects and use them to create more powerful mana types. Using only the basic six mana types to create all others is a philosophical stone, though, and most would use a few three-merged mana types to create a four-merged mana type, for example.

I managed to control the muscles of a corpse by using Vitality Mana. It’s a crude control, not suitable for a battle, but I managed to force a fresh corpse to breathe and keep it "alive," that is, vitality mana expenditure was stable.

I can only keep puppeting a body for a dozen minutes so far. I had the Corpse Puppeting (Very Rare) skill available, but I didn't choose it because it's a magic skill, and I'd have to drop one of my current skills. I doubt it would help much, anyway. It’s only Very Rare rarity, and I’m using the legendary mana type for puppeting. It almost certainly won’t help with puppeting via vitality. I will pick it up if I ever find a complete roadblock in my research, though.

The Soul Blade project is also moving forward. Together with Axi, I managed to create a few parts and tools for more complicated elements. At this rate, it will be finished around the start of the summer.

I look down. Axi is doing a good job, and I cum. She swallows, and then lies down and spreads her legs.

“Your turn.”

“Right.” I smile. Axi evolved into a hobgoblin a month ago. She had two epic options for her next class. Funny enough, her system didn’t consider her earth mana skills as separate mana types. For example, she was offered Genius Mage due to having four high-rare magic skills, some of which are based on earth mana. Her second option was Self-Armored Spellblade, a class that was a mix of a blacksmith and a fighter. She got it for having a very rare armor skill—the Superior Earth Armor skill—the very one that creates armor from soil for her.

She received two very rare skills. The first one is called Armor Runes. It gave her some runes for metal, wood, and skin mana types, focusing mostly on durability. The second skill was an armor-oriented skill of suitable mana type, and she got the Explosion:Infused Fire skill, which lets her contain a fireball in her armor and then blow it up at someone. Both skills use runes, so I copied them. Skills themselves are useless for me, but new runes are always nice.

As for why I’m just eating Axi out, it’s because now that she is a hobgoblin, our children are born hobgoblins as well. Or rather, they should be, but we are in the 1st tier zone. The first batch came looking like goblins, but actually had a hobgoblin class from the start. Fighting and earning Exp helped a bit, but they are still malformed. Now, I could abort babies, but before souls appear, it’s a bit hard and not 100% effective. As long as Axi stays here, it’s fine, but if she plans to go on a hunting trip, we need to avoid me cumming inside her. I finish some time later, and now we just need to wait for Anastasia for our post-winter discussion.