Novels2Search

The Old Man Joe

When the sun was about to set, Michael and Absko arrived at the goblins' camp.

"You really figured it out. great!" Absko said while smiling and looking at the goblins as a predator looking at its prey.

"Cut the crap, it is almost night. We have to be quick." Michael answered.

Both of them then went straight to the goblins' cap's gate without the slightest fear.

When getting close to it, the goblins saw both of them getting near and prepared themselves to fight.

Michael was the first to make a move and directly send a fireball on the gate, which was unnaturally quick burned to ashes. They then walked inside the cap.

Absko then took his sword in his hand and attacked the goblins head-on, while Michael took the opportunity to start conjugating high-scale magic.

Michael started to accumulate mana above his head unstoppable. All the goblins that got near him were sliced by Absko's sword or received a thrown knife in the head.

After a few minutes of preparing the magic, Absko had already killed around ten goblins, but there were still a lot of goblins left.

Michael then turned all the mana accumulated into a pool of fire and threw it to all directions.

All the buildings in the village started to burn and all goblins near them burned along.

'It really worked!' Michael thought as he smile while looking at the result of his magic.

Michael was exhausted, but he could still send some fireballs and burn some more goblins to ashes.

When the moon arrived in the middle of the sky, there were only corpses and buildings burning in the goblin's village.

Absko and Michael killed every single goblin before going back to the jungle. It was a true slaughter.

...

The next day, in the cave Blake occupied, Blake woke up and, as routine, asked the jaguars to hunt his breakfast.

'I've already researched the insects and undead's ability yesterday, but I think I'm not ready for the last research goal I made.

'I don't know. I guess today I will only practice my perception and energy manipulation since I have to improve those abilities if I want to get strong.'

After eating, Blake then asked his undead to keep guard while meditating as he did before to increase his perception. But this time, he killed one of his undead leaves and guided the undead energy rotating around him in order to practice the energy manipulation.

...

In the middle of the afternoon, Blake woke up from his trance, when he felt another strange life energy coming in his direction. As last time, the silhouette was humanoid, but he couldn't say if it was truly a foreign race or a human.

Blake then strategically organized his undead to defend against any threat. He asked the snake to camouflage in the grass while the jaguars were on the borders of the cave preparing to surround the enemy. The tiger was left to receive the enemy head-on with Blake.

The life form was getting near when it got to Blakes's view and he realized it was actually a human.

He was a tall and strong man, even though he looks to be forty or fifty years old, he did not look fragile as an old man at all.

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"Calm down, I'm a human just like you." The old man said.

Blake wasn't the type to put his guard down quickly, so he just order his undead to cool down a bit to look more approachable to the other party but keep the guard up.

"Sorry, is just that I couldn't tell through distance. I am Blake, the 100 rank. What about you?" Blake asked.

"My name is Joe, I was ranked 85 in the game, nice to meet you, Blake." Joe answered while getting near Blake and standing his hand to a handshake.

"Nice to meet you, Joe. But, what are you doing wandering alone in this jungle?" Blake asked while greeting Joe.

"The same as everyone, I guess. Just developing my class."

"Your group?"

"We were ambushed by goblins and I was "killed". When coming back, I was alone. You?"

"I decided to go alone myself, but I was also "killed" by a group of goblins before." Blake answered with a faint laugh.

Both of them quickly got along together.

They chatted during the rest of the day learning about each other.

Joe was very charismatic and energetic. He used to be a college student of engineering before coming here. Besides, his class is the "Animal King" which, as necromancers, used to be kind of infamous for being hard to develop.

Animal King was a class based on making contracts with other creatures, be they humans or not, and copied part of its ability and status in the process.

However, Joe has modified his ability during that time in the jungle. He now can take the abilities and status from everything he eats, be it animal or plant. According to Joe, his ability used to be too inefficient, so he changed it.

At night, Joe decided to stick together with Blake, so they could help each other improve.

...

The next morning, as usual, Blake woke up and asked the Jaguars to hunt his breakfast. But this time it was his and Joe's breakfast.

After they aet, Joe asked:

"What are you researching today?"

"If my undead keep their memories from when they were alive."

"How exactly do you plan to do it?"

"I just have to go take my test subjects." Blake answered while smiling sinisterly.

Joe's class was more practical, so he did not need to research like Blake's. Therefore, he decided to help in Blake's research and see if he could use it to implement his own class.

Both of them went to the jungle to search for their prey.

"What exactly are we looking for?" Joe asked.

"Goblins!"

At that time, Blake found their silhouette. Blake practiced his perception a lot the day before, so he was naturally much more sensitive to the life energy and could extend a higher area of search.

Blake ran in the goblins' direction and Joe followed behind.

When they arrived near them, Blake alerted Joe.

"I need them alive, don't kill, just knock them out."

At that time, Blake also ordered telepathically his undead to sneakily surround the goblins.

He was afraid to use king-cobra's poison and kill the goblins, so he wanted to use the snake just to hold one of them as a string.

He wasn't confident before, but now he had Joe, who had developed his class into a very OP one.

After surrounding the goblins, they direct attack.

Different than last time, Blake made sure to keep the element of surprise and also did not allow the jaguars to fight separately.

He ordered the king-cobra to roll up and hold one of them, while the tiger take another one and the two jaguars the other.

Meantime, Joe used an unbelievable physical strength to hold the other goblins and easily knock them out.

It went more smoothly than planned. They quickly took the goblins down and knock them out one by one.

Back in the cave, Blake made a small prison for them with some rocks and the help of Joe's engineering knowledge. It was actually Joe's idea.

Blake then first tried to establish a communication method with the goblin leader, while having the other in a different cell of the prison.

However, it was inefficient, because the goblin don't look like he speak the same language as the humans.

Joe, that was at Blake's side then said:

"I don't think he will cooperate in the first place. We just captured them. Let's hold them prisoners for now, and communicate with them later."

Blake direct agreed and went back to train his perception and energy manipulation.

Joe also decided to develop this life and death energy perception and start to meditate with Blake, asking him some points when needed.

Since Joe was increasing his strength by eating dead animals, the death energy actually be absorbed, preventing him to absorb the useful energy he needed.

He is not sure what he needs to absorb. He usually just absorbed all the animals' energy at all, the same it used to be with the contract. But the death energy may be a "pollutant" that degraded what it needs to be absorbed since it is opposed to life energy.

At the end of the day, when both of them were to eat their dinner. Joe used his ability and utilized the imperfect death energy perception he just develop with Blake's help.

He noticed he truly absorbed more of the animals or at least a purer energy. He just increased the efficiency of his ability.

The energy overflowed from Joe's body and he felt as if breaking a barrier inside. Joe then thought:

'System!'