After she leveled up, she felt a difference. Each of her stats had increased by 2 and just barely, she could feel the difference while she fought. She has never experienced this.

When the system wasn't a thing, Kyra had to work day and night, in secret, to become as good as she showed everyone, even if she was naturally talented. Like juggling three balls a few times was easy to master, but continuously juggling while walking required some practice.

But now, as long as she could swat the goblins, she could get better. It only took less than half an hour. And there were potions. There should be a stamina potion somewhere that she could obtain later on. She can "grind' all she wanted.Now... it felt like there were concrete steps leading to power. If that's the case, she wondered, how long will I have to climb?

Inching through the tunnel, Kyra noticed there were crystals embedded into the walls of the cave that dimly illuminated her way. She clutched her dagger in front of her as the tunnel grew wider and opened up into a large dome-like shape. Her heart roaring, Kyra observed the terrain nervously. She saw shadows flicker and disappear. Unnatural stone spikes rose out of the ground like obstacles. Immediately she readied herself with her weapon raised menacingly.

Perhaps 10 or so goblins stepped out from behind the elongated spikes with a mix of spears and daggers. Kyra licked her lips. Great.

The fight was brutal. The goblins seemed to have a hive mind as they swarmed her, weapons raised. But utilizing the bottleneck of the tunnel to the dome-cave, Kyra limited the number of attacking goblins at once. Yet the goblins' long spikes grazed her skin. Kyra winced.

Recalling the warrior goblin, she copied him and she smashed her dagger through the spears, effectively eliminating them. Then Kyra lurched forward and met the defenseless, attacking goblins with a dagger to their eye. The normal [cave goblins] disintegrated, evening the numbers from a 10v1 to a 5v1.

However, the other five goblins' attacks had met skin and Kyra felt her limbs flare in pain as their daggers scraped it. Her HP fell.

HP: 19/33

As her health depleted, Kyra panicked and drew out the HP potion, sucking out the last few drops of the tasteless liquid. Immediately her health boosted to 39/33.

"Yes!" she exclaimed. Her theory had proven correct. In the future, she could have multiple little vials of health potions on her with the few drops of potions collected from their original, larger bottles. It would save time in activating its effects because as soon as that last drop touches her tongue, her health would jump up, instead of chugging down the whole bottle at once, which takes longer than swallowing a few drops.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

[Additional health will be converted to stats boost.]

A screen emerged, passing through the heads of a goblin who snarled and jumped back, shocked. Kyra's face was equally confused.

[Randomly assigning stats boost...]

[+6% to strength and endurance for 2 minutes!]

Her health dropped back to 33/33, while her muscles seemed to shift by the tiniest margin. Unless someone was as attuned to their body as Kyra was - from working out and doing a bunch of different sports to impress people - they probably wouldn't feel the slight change as Kyra side-stepped from an attacking goblin.

However, now was not the time to dwell on her success in theory. There were five warrior goblins who Kyra didn`t know how to deal with, since she didn't have weapon supremacy. Kyra evaded the five goblins' attack of stone daggers as she lept backwards, stumbling as she did when her jump was just a tad off balanced. But they were too fast, and caught up with her in no time.

One of them slashed their dagger and Kyra deflected it, taking another step backwards. The other goblins followed, encircling Kyra and poising their own daggers to attack. Kyra deflected another blow on her left. Her feet skid backwards. Thinking fast, Kyra used that momentum and lept backwards, knocking a goblin to the ground. Taking the dagger from its hand, she struck it in its chest and it vanished into dust.

Even with two weapons, Kyra was overpowered by the goblins. Knocking the dagger away from one of them, Kyra barely escape the onslaught of the other three. Frustrated, Kyra spun around, swinging both daggers like a spinning top. The goblins retreated beyond her grasp. She would die if she couldn't think of a way to leave.

There is one way, Kyra thought as she glanced at the eerie spikes. Then, she whipped around and ran into the maze.

IT WAS A MISTAKE, Kyra screamed inwardly as she tripped over yet another thin, small spike that barely protruded ground. These tiny nuisances were hidden by the large spikes she saw before, and the ground wall plenty full as she half jumped, half skipped through the maze. And the goblins were better at this as they hunted her, jumping from one large spike to the next. She needed to shake away the goblins for a little while.

Kyra sacrificed a few precious HP and tripped on some spikes as she called up inventory. She stuck one of the daggers inside and pulled out one of the spears. Kyra turned around. She stopped and aimed, her PE javelin practice coming into play and she struck one of the goblins in the leg and it went down.

She darted around and ran a little more before repeating, striking down another warrior goblin in the mouth - it wasn't her fault it was snarling at her when she threw, right? But now she was out of projectiles. If only she had more! But now was not the time. The two goblins caught up, and the one struck through the leg would be arriving soon.

So Kyra struck first, suddenly turning around and landing the first stab through the skinny arm of one of them. The other one snarled and lept. It landed on Kyra's back. The impact knocked her to the ground. Panic itched in Kyra's guts as other goblin jumped on her as well, their weight suffocating her. Panic screamed at her. Her limbs started fumbling uselessly by her side, grabbing air where Kyra wished she could grab the goblins' throats.

There was buzzing in Kyra's ears and a burning sensation shooting up her chest. She felt a warm haze on top of her, farther away than the goblins. The crystals on the ceiling seemed to vibrate. Could it be? In one of the games Kyra tried before, one feature they installed was the harvesting of mana crystals in specific locations. these mana crystals could replenish a player's mana when used.

A dagger pierced her abdomen and she yelled in pain, yet a little corner of her mind wondered if those shining blue crystals were Mana crystals. Even if they were, what could I do with them? Kyra cursed at Tiny in muffled breathe, angry by the useless [Mana Sense] that gave her false hope. Telling her there was a way out, but not giving her any way to use it.

She imagined herself tugging at the crystals that she felt, an imaginary Kyra floating up in the ceiling, hands desperately clawing at the embedded lights.

"Please!" She screamed. Her eyes bulged and her head was swinging dizzily from her lack of air. A few more seconds, and it'll be over.

"PLEASE!" The buzzing of the crystals grow louder and louder until it drowned the growling of the goblins.

"Goddamn-- Move already!"

[Due to your actions, you have learned the skill Mana Manipulation! Mana can now be manipulated by will!]

A crystal broke free of the ceiling with a crack.