In every RPG Daniel had ever played, the way to become truly strong was to combine skills and advantages so that the end result was far greater than the sum of the parts. In other words, he needed to game the system.

He smiled. When he'd played table top RPGs with his friends as a child, they had always complained over his power gamer tendencies. But, min maxing his character was the thing he liked best about those games. At least here, in this dungeon, nobody would complain about this.

Looking at his character sheet his greatest advantage that came to mind was the crazy bonus to attribute training. His decision before had been to make regeneration one of his primary attributes. In combination with the perk it would mean that he could train far more with shorter breaks and far greater results. It would probably be a good idea to increase that advantage even more. Looking at his nearly empty mana pool, he sat down and started a breathing exercise with the target in mind to gain a skill that would improve his regeneration even more.

When his mana and stamina pool was full again, it was time for experimentation. The next goal would be to move compressed air fast around in a certain area. This should be able to move projectiles from their course so they wouldn't hit him. Compared to his air blade, this one wasn't a very complex use of magic and it didn't take very long. After around 15 minutes, he got his next notification.

Elemental Spell created

Air - Windshield (channelling) - Level 1

Deflects projectiles to a degree depending on spell level and mana usage and projectile speed and mass.

He smiled, this was exactly what he'd wanted. Daniel started to do tests with his new spell and soon came to the conclusion that it would take a lot of mana to shield himself against ranged attacks from every direction. Far too much to keep the shield active in a drawn out fight. But, it would be very useful in bursts while moving from cover to cover or to protect him long enough to eliminate the long ranged enemies.

Before he could do more tests, his mana reserves were already empty again. He sat down and started his to repeat his breathing exercise.

This time, he got what he wanted. Before his mana was full again, he was awarded with another prompt from the system.

Skill gained: Meditation (active) - Rank Novice 0%

Increases regeneration while active

His plan had worked. This would help him to decrease his down time a lot in the future. Now, he only had one skill slot to fill for the moment. It didn't take long before he came up with a plan. He opened his exercise bag and put on his training clothes. Then he started to do push-ups, crunches and squats until his stamina ran out. After this he meditated until his mana and stamina were full again and repeated the cycle while maintaining his Wincutter blade. A bit later, the first rewards came in. But, Daniel kept going until he got what he wanted.

Strength + 1 + 11 XP

Strength + 1 + 12 XP

Strength + 1 + 14 XP

Mana Capacity + 1 + 18 XP

Skill gained: Self Improvement (passive) - Rank Novice 0%

Increases efficiency of attribute gain.

Daniel smiled over his achievement. This was even better than he had hoped. He had aimed for something that would boost his training, but this skill would increase attribute gains from real fights, too.

The three skills would be a good base for his future in this world. Maybe, if he could get powerful enough, he could find a way back home to Earth. He paused his training and went for his supplies.

After eating some meat he cooked on his gas burner and drinking some water, he decided it would be a good time to start his first expedition outside the safe zone. He needed to know what kind of dangers he would have to face, in order to optimally use the five days this zone was safe for training.

Daniel started to put on his protective gear. While it was normally used to reduce the impacts of blunt sabers, it would give him some level of protection even against sharp weapons. At last, he put on his mask, grabbed his saber and moved out of the safe zone.

There were two tunnels leaving from the cave where he and parts of his apartment had arrived. He took the smaller one. It was only one meter wide and would offer some kind of protection against being surrounded by whatever creatures inhabited this dungeon.

Daniel tried to be as quiet as possible while he moved into the tunnel. The good news was, that there was some kind of glowing stone in regular intervals in the ceiling. This flooded the tunnel in eerie light. Maybe, there was some rule against a dark dungeon? If he were a dungeon and his aim was to kill intruders, his dungeon would be pitch black.

But, perhaps he was over thinking the situation. Another explanation was that dungeons had no intelligence and the light was just a random coincidence. Be it as it may, it would have sucked to explore some dark tunnels without a flashlight or a torch. Daniel was only around 100 meters into the tunnel when he heard noise. It sounded like wild animals fighting over food. He tightened his grip on the saber and continued.

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After a curve in the tunnel, he spotted three small humanlike creatures, crouched over something he couldn't identify. The system gave him the information that he needed

Small starving green Goblin

Level 2

Small starving green Goblin Level 3

Small starving green Goblin

Level 2

He didn't know how they noticed him, but all three of them turned their head in his direction. Their red glowing eyes were kind of creepy. Daniel didn't hesitate and activating his Windcutter spell to sharpen his blade.

The goblins came at him like they were in a frenzy. They were only 1.2 meters tall, but that made them small enough so that they could run through the narrow tunnel next to each other. When they were close, they jumped at him. Daniel cursed and stabbed his blade into the neck of one of the creatures while he tried his best to move out of the way of the other two. He was successful with one. But, the other reached him, grabbed his arm and stabbed him with the rusty knife the creature was holding in its other hand. It hurt, but the goblin wasn't able to penetrate his protected clothes. Daniel let go of his saber that was stuck in the neck of the now dead third goblin. He kicked the goblin that missed him as hard as he could against the head, while he used his now free hand to grab the knife arm of the goblin that just stabbed him. The creature wasn't very strong, and it took him only a few seconds to ram the goblins rusty knife into its own neck. While doing that, he felt pain in his leg. He let go of the dead goblin and saw that the one that he'd kicked bit in his leg. Daniel grunted and kicked the goblin a few time against the wall until it let go of his leg. It looked like the goblin was stunned. He used the time to free his saber from the neck of the first goblin. Then, he stabbed the unconscious goblin.

After the last goblin was dead, he took a deep breath and looked at his arm and leg. While it was hurting, he was not bleeding. A look at his status showed him that he did only take minimal damage.

Life 97%

This fight had gone totally different from anything he had experienced before. It had only taken a little over 10 seconds, but it had been total chaos. His one on one training seasons at saber fighting hadn't been a good preparation for this. Daniel was pretty sure that he would win one on one fights against an almost endless amount of these goblins. As long as he had enough mana and stamina, they would be no real danger. But, without his protective equipment, he would have been seriously injured from just three of the creatures. For the first time, the gravity of his situation got to him. While the system made this reality game like, it was not a game. There were no turn based attacks. His enemies just tried to overwhelm him with numbers. Two, maybe three more goblins and he would probably have died in this fight. He shouldn't have stabbed the first goblin. The Windcutter spell didn't work properly inside the enemy, but it had helped greatly in the first moments of a hit. The saber itself was blunt, which caused it to get stuck in the creatures neck. If he'd slashed the first goblin, while he was moving backwards and keeping his distance, the fight would've probably been a lot easier.

Daniel gathered himself and had a look at what the goblins were occupied with when he found them. He had to throw up. It was a half eaten human body. This was the first dead human he'd ever seen and it didn't look like that man did have a fast death. He wasn't an expert, but somewhere he'd heard that a body wouldn't bleed as much if it was injured after the heart was no longer beating. This man had sprayed blood from his gutted intestines all over the floor.

Next to the dead man were two more dead goblins. It seemed like the stranger was attacked by five of the creatures and was able to kill two of them before the rest got him. This could have been his own fate. Daniel put that thought into the back of his mind. Right now, he had a more important task at hand. He needed to gather everything that would increase his own survival chances.

The first useful thing he spotted were the military boots of the dead man. They would be far more useful than his own sneakers. He checked the size and saw that he got lucky, the boots fit. Sitting down at a space on the floor that was clean of guts and blood, Daniel changed his footgear. After that, he looked around. There were cloth, beverages and food items spread over the floor.

Did the dead men's inventory empty out on the floor when he'd died? It sure looked like it. Daniel gathered everything that was still packaged or stayed clean of the blood. While he did that, he found a 9mm pistol with 6 rounds. When he smelled the gun, he concluded that it was fired a short time ago. It would probably not be the most useful weapon to hit the small and fast goblins. On the other hand, it didn't take mana to use and it could be useful on a larger and stronger opponent. He picked up the pistol and put it into his inventory then he checked the tunnel.

There was a T intersection, the tunnel on his left had the footprints of the goblins, while in the one on the right he saw the footprints of the boots that were now on his own feet. Maybe, he could find another save zone he thought, while he followed the boot prints.

Five minutes later, Daniel arrived in a cave where pieces of a bedroom and parts of a workshop were teleported into. He didn't get a notification. So, either the safe zone expired with the death of the owner or a it was only safe for its original occupant. It didn't matter, in the corner of the remains of the workshop he found what he needed the most. A grindstone for sharpening tools. He got to work and improved the dull blade of his saber to a sharp edge. After finishing, he put the grindstone in his inventory. Sooner or later he needed to sharpen his blade again.

Daniel looked around the rest of the cave and found a pillow, some clothes and a blanket that all went into his inventory. There was nothing else useful here. So, he decided to finish his expedition and to get back to his own safe zone. If this was a goblin dungeon that specialized on overwhelming intruders with numbers, he needed to create some spells that would help him in a situation like that.

On his way back, he saw a blinking symbol in the corner of his vision. When he concentrated on that, a notification opened.

Level up

He opened his status window and he saw that the fight with the goblins awarded him a good amount of experience.

Status Daniel Krieger

Level

XP

Free Attribute Points

1

265

10

With a smile on his face, he followed his plan and distributed the point to mana capacity, agility and regeneration.

Attributes

Strength

Agility

Vitality

Endurance

Mana Capacity

Regeneration

Mana Regeneration

Toughness

17

22

12

16

22

20

11

11