∼ DAY 8 ∼
Readapting my previous strategy of infiltrating a goblin den, I move towards my target.
While I could easily slaughter my way in, I wanted to first see the situation and maybe try a few things out before doing anything rash.
Moving through the cave, I definitely see that it's somewhat bigger than the previous one.
This den had one more sleeping chambers, and the place was generally more populated by goblins.
This time around, this place didn't have any sort of special holy stone or anything weird like the last one.
It just smelled like a concoction of anything the body can produce, just like you would expect a goblin den to smell like.
Scrunching my face in disgust my thoughts wandered to why the other goblins would even have such a precious item like a crimson core in the first place.
Knowing goblins, they probably found it some random place they shouldn't have been.
Pulled out of my wandering thoughts, as I spot my target.
Here we go.
Even though goblins looked pretty much exactly the same, only slight differences in genders. But I definitely could recognize this ugly fucker's face in an instant.
In a chamber where goblins were mostly sleeping, the green little bastard was taking another goblin from behind.
My god, it's like seeing the most awkward teens having sex while trying to do it like how pornstars do it in pornos.
Even normal animals are more graceful than this.
Jesus christ...
Well, now is as good a time as any.
Inspecting the goblin, I don't see any effect from the sanguine plague that it has been afflicted with.
Hmm, weird.
It's pretty safe to say that the plague doesn't harm them, or at least unless I make it do somehow.
Wanting to be sure, I appraise it.
-Appraisal!-
Appraisal - Goblin
Information Attributes
Traits. Titles. and Skills -Name- "???" STR 5 Skills 4 -Race- Goblin VIT 4 Traits 2 -Sex- Male AGI 5 Titles 0 -Rank- H- DEX 4 Resistances
-Level- 5/10 INT 5 Health 30/30 CHR 1 Physical Resistance 3 Stamina 8/13 WILL 2 Magical Resistance 0.084 Mana 0/0 MAG 0.01 Mental Resistance 1 Afflicted
Hmm, nope.
Nothing that I can remember has changed, and it doesn't seem like he's harmed or anything.
Done with inspecting him, I take action.
Seeing that he currently has his guard lowered quite a bit, as he's nailing that ugly goblin, I begin to slowly try and bridge the connection of our minds again.
Feeling an immense mental strain, I push through.
Slowly the goblin began to act weird, seemingly confused as to what's happening.
Feeling I only needed one last push, I flooded my mental pressure into the goblin.
Clutching its head in pain, the goblin slowly lost strength in its arm and let hang to his sides.
Mentally exhausted and spent, I inspect first my remaining mana and then the goblin.
-Status!-
Status
Information Attributes
Traits. Titles. and Skills -Name- "???" STR 10 Skills 19 -Race- Azde (Blood Fiend) VIT 20 Traits 5 -Sex- Male AGI 35 Titles 2 -Rank- F DEX 20 Skillpoints 5 -Level- 1/35 INT 20 Resistances
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Health 82/82 CHR 5 Physical Resistance 10 Stamina 31/32 WILL 18 Magical Resistance 5 Mana 2/3 (5) MAG 15 Mental Resistance 8
Huh?
Why does my maximum mana say 3 now?
And what does it mean by 5 in parenthesis?
Looking back the goblin who was just looking out into nothing with a blank expression on its face, or at least more blank than usual for a goblin.
Did I manage to take full control?
Commanding with my mind, I will the goblin to lift its hand.
Without delay, it did as I willed.
Fuck yeah!
Noticing that the goblin had stopped fucking it, the other goblin on all fours looked back to the goblin and yelled incoherently, seemingly very mad that he'd stopped.
[Language - Rathian/Goblin Dialect, has been learned 25%]
After that abrupt prompt, I suddenly started to understand some of the foul words spewing from the female goblin.
Not wanting to currently hear any more of the ragged language I offhandedly willed the goblin to continue while I inspected my status again, just to by some time while I figure things out.
Immediately shutting up, the dumb goblin didn't notice any further change.
Looking back at the 5 points of mana in parenthesis, I think I've figured out what is happening.
This the most reasonable answer to this, and it's that taking control over this goblin reserves 2 points of my maximum mana. So the parenthesis is just showing my actual maximum mana when not reserved.
I guess it does make sense that has to reserve some of my mana pool to mind control creatures, or I could pretty easily just amass a giant army in no time with no real cost.
But seeing it actually work, I can already guess that this sanguine plague is going to be a pillar of my future power.
Retraining my gaze on the unsightly scene of two ugly monsters having at it, I decide to see how far I can push this mind control.
Making the goblin in my control pick up a rock laying on the ground to its side, which was almost too large to fit in its hand, I will him to bash the head of the goblin who was taking it from behind with the rock.
A thump followed by a very slight cracking sound rang out, as the female goblin on all fours slumped to the ground.
Seeing that it didn't die on the first strike, I will the goblin to strike again.
This time the head cave in quite a bit, and I was greeted by a prompt.
[LVL: 5 Goblin has been slain by another under your control!]
[You have been rewarded with the split 16 points of EXP]
Oh?!
I get EXP from the ones who are under my influence?
That's some really good news.
It also seems that the EXP is split, so most likely the goblin has gotten the other half.
This will be very useful in the future.
Pulled out of my thoughts, I hear the yammering of multiple goblins shouting at the goblin who just had bashed in a head.
I could somewhat manage to tell, that they were shouting curse words and questions like why he wasted a perfectly good woman.
Seeing them advance on the goblin under my control, I dropped from the ceiling unveiling my obscurement.
"Hello, guys oh- and gals." - Me
Shocked at my sudden appearance, the goblins reeled back.
Letting my killing intent flood the chambers I began to execute the next phase of my experiments.
[You have slain 35 Goblins!]
[You have been rewarded with 1025 points of EXP]
[Congratulations! You've reached level 2]
[You've been rewarded with 1 skill point for reaching level 2]
[Siphon]
[You have consumed the blood of Goblins 35 times]
[599 points of EXP has been acquired and stats have been added]
[Dash has reached LVL: 3-4]
[Greater Smell has reached LVL: 4]
[Lesser Enhanced Organs has reached LVL: 3]
[Weak Infusing Slash has reached LVL: 5]
[Thermal Sight has reached LVL: 2]
It takes me less than 2 hours, to not only slaughter and drain most of the goblins in the den. But also capture ten goblins by maim- ahem, making them unable to escape.
Standing in the farthest sleeping chamber from the den entrance, me and my trusty green little friend inspect the 10 incapacitated and whining goblins in front of us.
For the rest of the whole day, I performed various experiments on the green little buggers.
And I must say, I've learned a lot about the sanguine plague.
The first two goblins, a male and a female, I fed my blood to.
But this time around I didn't do it the normal way. I drew on something instinctual of the sanguine plague and willed it to be as harmful as possible when I infected them.
But not seeing any immediate reaction in the goblins, I let them be for now and continued onto my next test subjects.
This time around, I willed my blood to be beneficial instead as I fed it to two other goblins.
To my surprise, there was an immediate effect of giving them a slight temporary strengthening effect to their stats.
It was only about a point or two in strength, vitality, and agility. But it also seemed to heal them a very little amount.
But I don't know if it is because of goblins' inherent ability to go into a frenzy mode, that they did immediately did so after receiving my buffing blood or if it's another effect of the buff.
But I believe it's probably just because they already have the ability to go into it, and my blood simply pushed them over the edge like a drug.
Moving onto the next two test subjects, I tried a bunch of different things that came to mind of how to utilize the sanguine plague but none seemed to work.
The last test I performed was to see if I could increase infection rates.
I know from the mind-controlled goblin standing behind me that he hadn't infected anyone else, even though he had done things like intercourse and sleeping among other goblins.
I didn't manage to make any progress in that field on those two test subjects though, so I moved onto another set.
This time a had an idea, I made the goblin under my contr- no wait. Hmm, let's just call him Bob for now, a very easy name, and very original.
So I made Bob go over to one of the goblins and had him feed them his blood.
To my surprise, while inspecting their statuses they both became infected.
But since it wasn't me physically doing it, I didn't receive any prompts about it so only on their statuses I could see it happen.
Another thing was that their presence the starry night of my mind were like extremely faint stars compared to someone like Bob and the other I've personally infected.
It must have something to do with the quality of blood.
Wanting to see if it affected my ability to take over their minds I began to bridge the connection of one of them.
This time around, it was a lot harder than Bob.
Almost completely drained from a full mana pool, I manage to barely connect our minds.
Luckily it didn't seem like the connection was any weaker than the one Bob and I had, it simply cost more the form it.
The reserved mana was also 2 points like Bob, making my current maximum mana available 2 points. It being 2 and not 1 maximum mana points now, which is because after leveling up I gained another mana point to my actual total mana pool.
Wanting to test the limit of the mind control, I gave the goblin a sharp stone in a hand that barely was broken, just enough to operate.
But without hesitation, it stabbed the bladed rock into its own throat as I willed it to. With that, my 2 points of reserved mana also returned to my total pool, they just needed to be refilled again.
It would seem that the mind control is pretty much complete domination.
Well, I shouldn't bet on it being complete domination. Maybe if someone's will or resistance is high enough they can somewhat resist my commands but I don't know for sure.
Now, to the last of the test subjects.
For a minute or two, I ponder about what I should do with them.
I don't have any more things to test out about my sanguine plague, so I decide to test out my blood shaping on them.
Waiting until my mana was fully replenished, I returned to the last subjects.
Stretching out one of my finger claws, I shoved it into the temple of one of the goblins immediately snuffing out its life as I penetrated its brain.
[Goblin takes 36 damage, a critical hit!]
[LVL: 4 Goblin has been slain!]
[You have been rewarded with 30 points of EXP]
Seeing the end of the goblin beside it the remaining test subject was horrified but was still unable to move or escape.
Withdrawing my bloody finger, I move over to the horror-stricken goblin.
Lifting the same finger I had just used to snuff out the life of another, I puncture into the chest of the goblin.
[Goblin has taken 3 damage!]
I don't do it deeply, just enough to let out blood.
Taking a step back, I began to try and influence the blood of the still alive goblin first.
What I was trying to do, was to pull out as much blood I could.
I could barely pull it into the air because of the innate resistance of the blood, so I just yanked as much blood out I could.
Stopping before I drained all of my mana, I turned to the dead goblin.
Willing its blood to move to my guidance, I was surprised at how easy it was.
While not as easy as my own blood, it was pretty close.
Without a living host, the resistance was pretty much gone.
Continuing to condense most of the dead goblin's blood I was surprised at the low cost of the shaping.
Compared to when I shaped my own blood into a needle, the mana cost and mental exertion for the dead goblin's blood was a lot cheaper.
Spending almost all of my remaining mana, I manage to draw out enough blood to condense a small blood dagger.
Very satisfied with my achievement I test it on my carapace.
To my surprise, this blood dagger's sharpness and hardness were a lot worse than that of my own. It couldn't cut my carapace properly, only leaving scratches.
It would seem the quality of the blood also played a role, which would also make sense why it was that much easier.
But I already know instinctively, that if I were to condense even more of the dead goblin's blood into a similar dagger it would be more effective the more blood I used even though the quality was bad. But that would also mean higher requirements of cost and mental effort.
Looking back over to the two first test subjects, which I've kept an eye on, I see their sickly appearance.
It would seem that the sanguine plague can really hurt them, halfway through the experiments they had already started foaming around the mouth.
Now they were just barely conscious and somewhat delirious. The one thing that stood out to me the most was their veins, which now stood out clearly.
They were a very dark-red color and were slightly puffing up.
Wanting to see if they could now infect others, I threw the one uninfected goblin who I had tested my blood shaping on, over to them.
For a solid two hours, it was sandwiched by them both but there was no result.
It would seem that the sanguine plague can only be transmitted through blood. But there's also limits there since the quality and quantity of the blood has to be the right amount, or they simply won't be infected. It also decides to which degree they're infected.
Glancing over my test subjects, I nod.
Ah, finally done was all my experiments.
I must say, that what I've gained and learned from this will help me immensely in the future.
The only disappointment from all of this was the fact that I didn't even get a single skill level-up.
Unique skills like these are seemingly very hard to level-up compared to normal skills. But of course, it does make sense when they're this powerful.