[ Day 12 ]
‘There is no mistake about it.’
Approaching close to two weeks since his descent into the mysterious Labyrinth, Damian managed to confirm that the Goblins had been exhibiting strange behavior as of late.
‘They are acting strange.’
It wasn’t easily detectable at first glance, but after undergoing so many battles against them, Damian couldn’t help noticing the sudden flinches that broke down the Goblins’ rhythm every now and then.
Although they weren’t frequent enough to turn the Goblins into clown-like opponents, their appearance was still helpful to Damian.
‘It’s like they are scared of something.’
It wasn’t something like a physical deficiency or a lack of stamina, rather, it seemed like something that Goblins did instinctively.
Damian was only able to spare his attention to their faces very few times, but the Goblins’ complexion always had a hint of fear on their faces whenever that flinch occurred.
‘But why would they be… Well.’
After confirmation, curiosity to find the reason behind it came. However, taking everything into consideration, Damian was almost instantly able to find his answer.
‘It has to be it.’
It was hard to pinpoint when the strange behavior started since it wasn’t easy to notice at the start, but there were only two notable events that happened very recently, and one of them just didn’t seem to fit the bill.
Since it was made from the leather of a stronger monster, the Golden Goblin’s gift sounded like a plausible reason. That being said, Damian immediately denied that possibility.
Not to mention refined leather, the Goblin had kept Minotaur Beef Jerky in their possession!
It wasn’t like Goblins were blind bats, if something was going to scare them, it had to be at least similar in physique to an actual Minotaur. Fur or scent couldn’t trigger such a reaction.
After all, despite everything, the Goblins were still as ferocious as they were when it came to hunting Damian. Their irregular behavior hadn’t changed a single thing about their contempt for intruders.
On the other hand, there was only one instant that had been causing subtle changes from the very beginning.
‘The Fate Limit.’
Starting with the detailed system notification, followed by the strange dream that jumpscared Damian, the game’s anti-farming system appeared to possess many hidden effects.
If Damian had to guess, this unconventional Goblin debuff had to be one of them!
‘At least it seems to be a positive effect… For now.’
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Of course, since he wanted to keep up the level of difficulty, Damian wasn’t ecstatic about the beneficial detail. However, in a real case of life and death, this was likely going to be far more valuable than it seemed.
‘Maybe if I ended up facing a Goblin horde.’
The chances of the Labyrinth’s difficulty spiking to the level were probably not that high, but Damian welcomed all ready-made preparations!
“Nice!”
Setting his thoughts aside, Damian exclaimed at the sight of the shining stone in his hand. He managed to get an extra Life Stone for today!
The drop rate was anything but horrendous considering the increasing number of Goblins that he killed. Thankfully, a week was all it took for Damian to hit his Life Stone target of getting more than 30!
‘32. That should be enough to aim for it today.’
Since it took Damian 15 Life Stones to split his first Aura Ring into two, he made an estimate of doubling the resources for the Third Ring.
In the worst-case scenario where he ended up short by one or two points, Damian just had to farm another 10 Stones or so.
“We might be able to tier up today, Iris!”
Anything was better than waiting any further! Even if ‘Resource Devouring Genius’ worked better with abundance, there was a limit to human patience.
‘It’s also better to get used to the next tier’s capacity sooner than later.’
Piling up Life Stones wasn’t necessarily bad, but reaching Tier-3 at a later point meant losing precious combat experience.
Since Damian had already gotten used to the intervals between each Aura charge at Tier-2, it was a good time to freshen things up!
‘Let’s see…’
Having already decided that this would be his last battle of the day, Damian walked a bit forward in search of a hiding spot. However…
‘This will have to do.’
Just after wandering around for 15 minutes to no avail, Damian settled for a curved corner within the long stretching wall.
After progressing deeper and deeper into the Labyrinth, this wasn’t the first time where he had forsaken concealed caves.
{I can’t confirm anything, but the process of reaching Tier-3 should be the same as reaching Tier-2. If you can endure it, then…}
Remembering what happened one week ago, Iris didn’t feel the need to continue explaining. At this point, both she and Damian almost had the same amount of knowledge when it came to Tier Advancement.
In fact, as the one who personally experienced everything, Damian probably knew a bit more than her as of now.
‘I have to mentally prepare for this.’
Getting hit by pain when you didn’t expect it made things harder, but starting something that involved great pain wasn’t easy either.
In the end, Damian had to convince himself to do it in the same way he had done things so far. Pushing things for later wouldn’t make them easier.
[ Aura +1 ]
Since 32 Life Stones were too much volume for Damian’s hands, he only took ten out and put them into his lap before starting the absorption procedure.
As soon as any one of them got depleted, he was going to instantly replace them using the Inventory to keep the passive effect going.
[ Aura +1 ]
[ Aura +1 ]
Perhaps because this was Damian’s third time, the absorption process started very smoothly. Thanks to the stronger pull that the double Rings possessed, it no longer felt like a focus-consuming task.
‘Here it comes.’
[ Aura +1 ]
[ Aura +1 ]
[ Aura +1 ]
Nonetheless, the heart-bursting pain was still there. Damian hoped that it would lessen with his Tier increase, but he was still thankful that it didn’t increase further.
‘Please go faster.’
Powering through on cheer well, Damian prayed that his suffering would end sooner…