I wake up with Pokodo sitting on my chest. She managed to pull a healing scroll out of my bags and use it on me. My whole body is in pain, even after the heal. Sock is sitting right beside me licking my face. Pokodo is now almost twice as big as she was and she's also pitch black colored.
She must have gotten smarter, she knew I might have died if she didn't heal me. I slowly get up to see the rooms filled with treasure. I don't know where to start. A chest in the room is filled with coins. Mostly copper, some silver and I even see a gold coin.
The hob goblins crown had flown off during the fight, I pick it up. The crown is made of coins bent into shape. The center being a gold piece. In the corner of the room is a weird looking shield. I inspect it and its a rare wooden shield called “earth shield”. There's vines tangled around it and it has 2 stat boosts, 1 to defense the other to magic defense and a effect that allows nature magic to be cast on it to control the vines. I probably shouldn't use the vines in combat, I'm not sure they'd regenerate if they get sliced.
I test it out the vines, unwrapping from around the shield are about 10 feet long and there are 3 of them. I can use it to cling to walls and I use it to get into the room where the hobgoblin was launched. It was a secret treasure room from what it looks like. The gear from adventurers was stored here and from what I could see it was all high quality stuff. Not wanting to bad mouth the few pieces of gear the hobgoblin had on, he was wearing a rare set of boots.
The hobgoblin's body was in bad shape. Missing an arm, giant holes in his armor. Blood, bruises and cuts everywhere on his body. I shouldn't have used so much of my chi. That was a few years worth of chi I just used in a single attack… Inspecting the boots revealed the name “boots of feather fall”. 2 more stat boosts, 1 to defense and a 15% movement speed boost. The effect is reduced fall damage from heights. They're too big for me to wear, so I'll carry them out with me, not sure if I'm going to sell them or wait until I can wear them.
1 last rare was found, it was a wand. The name was “duality of magic”. Closer inspection showed 1 stat boost and 2 new effects. Stat boost was to mana regen, having it on me should reduce the time it takes to regenerate all of my mana by 5 minutes. The 2 effects were increased black magic and white magic spells. All and all was a huge boost to me gear wise.
I loaded up as much gear as I can carry. Dumping out my backpack of rocks before I entered, I now have a similar weight in it with the gear I looted. I summon another familiar, thinking about carrying things for me and I spawn a moving treasure chest. I load up as much treasure as I can into him and even make a makeshift spider silk harness so Sock can carry some equipment back.
Near the entrance was the group of naked women. I had completely forgot about them and I was surprised they were still here. I have no idea how long I was knocked unconscious for... Which makes them staying here even more of a mystery. I clothed the women in my makeshift spider silk pieces and a few of the pieces of gear I looted. It's very shoddy clothing but it's better than nothing. We make our way back to town and there are guards standing around doing nothing. The merchant is frantically running, begging the guards to come help when he see's our group heading towards the entrance. The women are no longer naked but we're still getting weird looks from everyone, I realize its me they're looking at.
With my familiars and pets carrying equipment for me. Me with a handful as well a huge amount of spoils from the cave. They're probably wondering how I managed to kill a goblin fortress by myself. I know I look strange compared to regular adventurers but will the stares ever stop? Stares that dig right through me... Does everyone realize I'm different? Or look down on me because I am weak... It turns out they were staring at me because I was covered in blood from head to toe… So I wash myself off with some water magic before entering the city.
The merchants more than happy to give me any reward I want. He was a potion seller so it would be nice to become friends with him. I wouldn't use potions normally because it reduces the growth of the type of thing it restores. (health potions will eventually reduce health regen if they're overused) Having a few back-ups just in case shouldn't be too bad for me.
The merchant gives me all the money he had on him. Which was a nice amount, he was paying guards to protect his caravan. He's probably a more well known and respected merchant from just having protection like that. I take all the gear to the blacksmith in the city and get a little over 2 gold for everything. I keep the rares for myself for later. Rares are of course rare to find. The total rewards for everything was almost 6 gold altogether... Enough to retire on and live fairly comfortably the rest of my life already... 6 gold was sitting this close to the city in that building an no one thought it was worth dealing with.
I was asked to file a report about what happened in the forest. I head to the main guard building. I pass by it everyday when I go jogging so I know exactly where it is. I enter and see Zeke sitting at the desk. He looks very bored with the busy work he's doing. After 5 minutes of shuffling things around he finally takes my report. I lie a bit about what exactly happened. “I can't tell him I blew apart a hobgoblin with several different types of magics and melee maneuvers.” I think to myself.
After the report I head back to school. That being said hobgoblins, aren't really that strong. Any of the adventurers who graduated from the training boot camp could have killed him without much effort, with a healer... He was a king though so he was probably above average. Judging from the equipment he had, the money he had... Yea, he was above average. It's only been a few hours but I'm completely exhausted so I fall asleep.
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The next day I decided to stay in town and try a few things out. I enchanted some paper with wind magic and bard magic and synthesized them together. When I put the paper on my harmonica it started playing the bard song which increases strength of allies who hear it for 5 minutes called strength ballad. Would be very handy for long fights. I also enchant black and white magic onto magic paper to see if my rare makes a difference and it does. They now jump straight to tier 2 magic scrolls. I go to the engineer's shop after lessons and buy some materials.
With the surplus of money I have right now. I'm going to stock up on materials and try a few things out. With steel, a very sturdy type of wood and the engineering parts. I start to work on putting together an automaton doll. I was going to hold off until I graduated but I don't think the headmaster will find out. Putting it together it feels more suited for combat then his servant dolls did.
I enchanted the wood with nature control magic to make it sturdier. I enchant the steel and engineering parts with haste magic to make it faster. When I pour all my magic into it I don't feel any pressure. I assume it's not going to explode and it springs to life. If I remember correctly I need to give him a simple command.
“You're name is now Gizmo, follow me for today.”
Gizmo is following me for today. I take him around the school and get a bunch of amazed looks. Some people have come up and asked about him, poking him as well to see what was going on. He's going to be a good addition to my group later on. I head into town so people can get accustomed to him as well. I might have him run errands so if I can I want people to know who he belongs to.
A few children approached me and asked questions about him but mostly it was just people staring. With him I visit all the shops and tell them he might show up to buy things for me. I ask for lists of items and prices of everything. Some of the shops wanted to buy him but right now I don't need to inflate the market. I'm the only one able to produce these in town besides headmaster Milton.
I'll give Gizmo the exact amounts for each item I need and the list of items I need when it comes down to that. I also bought plenty of herbs while I was out to work on some different types of potions and poisons I can now make that are goblin recipes.
I make a few potions of strength, agility, stamina and intelligence potions I already knew. I also make a fatigue point regeneration, mana point regeneration and health regeneration potions to. I spend awhile synthesizing the strength, agility, stamina and intelligence potions down into 4 stat boosting potions. I synthesize the fatigue, mana and health regeneration potions down into 3 regeneration potions.
Both are high quality potions that cost ten silver each. Once again though the time it takes to make each and the materials of each it wouldn't be worth doing for a living. While I can still adventure at least. It wasn't even a full day before the headmaster came to see me about my automaton doll. He was looking closely at the doll when I came back from making potions.
“Well, I see you've figured out how to make these dolls all by yourself.”
Milton said continuing to look at the doll.
“Strangest thing, since several months ago... The dolls I made that have no expiration date started to malfunction.”
I start to get afraid of the consequences for showing my ability to make them in front of everyone. Milton speaks up.
“Someone as skilled as you at making these could be a threat to the safety of the school if used improperly. Although someone willing to risk their life to save the daughter of one of my dear friends can be let off with just a warning.”
… What!? Through shear coincidence I got myself out of trouble.
“The dolls you destroyed still need to be replaced and I don't have the time to make them like I used to.”
Understanding the situation, I set out for the shops again to buy more materials.
The new dolls I've made for the library are smarter, faster and have the ability to soak in more mana than the dolls they replaced. The librarian can use 60% of his mana into each doll without fear of explosions.
They also stay active for 15% longer than the previous ones. The amount of improvements onto each job stacking because of tinkerer. I'm already more skilled than someone with years of practice under his belt. I shouldn't let it get to my head though. If Milton could use multiple jobs, his automatons would surely be able to run for weeks straight with less mana than what was spent on mine.