“So, you gonna tell me now what the hell happened?”

Roy snapped back out of his daze and looked at Robb, “They said it was a skill. Apparently, you use mana to make something like that.”

“Mana, huh? So can I do something like that too?” Robb had a confused expression on his face at first before it morphed into one of intrigue.

“I guess?” Roy replied with uncertainty. “Can you feel this weird energy in your body, like it’s going through your veins?”

Robb closed his eyes and focused on his body. After a few seconds, he opened his eyes and said, “Yeah, but slightly. It’s like my blood is thicker and moving with more force.”

“Try to push that energy to the tip of your fingers, that’s how I made that fireball,” Roy instructed with a deep interest in his eyes. He wanted to know whether Robb could also do it or not—and if he could, would that mean that everyone could create fireballs?

Robb spread his arm in front of him and tried to push the energy coursing through his body with all of his will. With immense effort, he pushed it all the way to the palm of his hand. He bit his lip and clenched his jaw as he put every inch of will and effort in his being towards pushing the energy to his fingertips. However, it would not move no matter how hard he tried.

After half a minute had passed and his eyes were about to pop, Robb finally gave up and caught his breath. “Damn, why does it not work?!”

“What’s your stats? Maybe it has to do with your mana.” Roy had a slightly disappointed look on his face at Robb’s failure. If he had succeeded, that would have meant that he could create an army of fireball-throwing people with just enough time and training. As those thoughts filled his mind, Roy shook his head. I shouldn’t be greedy, things are already going very well.

Robb, on the other hand, checked his status screen again and said. “All my stats are Sentinel rank now. Mana is D-, Constitution is E-, Strength E+, and Agility is B-.”

Robb had a slight grin plastered over his face when he announced his agility stat. As of now, he was sure that he was the fastest in the whole village—maybe even the whole county.

Roy scratched his chin while looking down at the ground in thought. “Ahh, I don’t know. It could be that your Mana is just low or that there are different skills that you would be compatible with. Honestly, we just don’t have enough information.”

Robb pouted before shrugging his shoulders. “Well, it doesn’t really matter. I still became ridiculously strong with this update. I could probably run laps on those ogres now.”

Roy chuckled before looking at Robb with interested eyes. “What do you say, wanna go and hunt them some more? I wanna see just how strong we became.”

Robb grinned and said, “You took the words right out of my mouth. Let’s go, I’m already pumped.”

The two ran across the village with incredible speed. Their performance before the stat update was already superhuman, but it had now reached even higher realms. No matter if it was a wolf or a horse, none could contend with them in a race.

In barely ten minutes, they were able to find an ogre sleeping inside a destroyed house.

Looking at this scene, Roy clicked his tongue. “Even if there were people living there, they’re probably not alive anymore…”

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Robb took a long breath, “That thing is using a house like a nice bed. Even if it didn’t eat them, it would have crushed them.”

After weighing all the possibilities in his mind, Roy laid out his plan. “I’ll light it up with my fireball from here. If it dies then that’s good, if not, then you finish it off quickly.”

Robb nodded, “Sure, sounds like a plan.”

With their plan already set, Robb crept towards the ogre silently while Roy readied his spell. Once he felt as if he put enough energy into his finger, he let out a fairly big fireball and launched it at the monster. The spell bolted towards its target with a blazing trail before exploding into a large explosion.

The ogre cried and roared as it was engulfed with the flames before Robb dashed like a ghost and jumped towards it. With one quick slash, he cut off its neck and decapitated it.

As the battle finished, Roy felt dizzy and disoriented. The energy that was coursing through his veins was now much milder than before, and as a result, he felt substantially weaker. Seems like these skills are not without a cost.

With the amount of mana he felt still flowing in his body, Roy calculated that he could at most launch two or three of those fireballs before he would be gassed out.

“You good? Your face is pale.” Robb looked with worry at his friend who was still clutching his head from the dizziness.

“Yeah, I’m good, just give me a second. I put too much mana in that fireball and it gave me a headache.”

“Take your time, no need to push yourself.” Robb wore a half-relieved smile as he patted Roy’s back. Once the latter’s complexion recovered, he smiled wildly, “Damn, that fireball was even stronger than the first one. You torched the poor thing to a crisp.”

Roy smiled weakly before his lips pointed downwards in disappointment. “Yeah, it’s a shame that I can’t use it too many times. We would have easily cleaned the village from all monsters.”

Robb was taken back in surprise by Roy’s statement. He burst out laughing and said, “Well, that wouldn’t be too good, would it? The others would wanna hunt too, you know?”

Roy looked at Robb with an open mouth before he smiled and said, “You’re right. I was too greedy.”

“It’s okay. Now, let’s go hunt some more ogres. It would make it safer for our groups when they go out tomorrow.”

With those words from Robb, the two went on to hunt more monsters. For some reason, the number of ogres had substantially increased to the point where they were able to find one after just ten minutes of searching. By the end of two hours and a half, they were able to defeat nine of them, with Roy killing four and Robb killing five.

As they ran around the village, they soon found themselves closer to the hall. The density of monsters increased, as they found more and more large packs of goblins. These packs had more than a hundred monsters, with some of them being blue variants that vastly overpowered the normal goblins.

The two just simply avoided contact with these packs. While they could beat them relatively easily, this was the territory of lord John and his knights. Roy sorely lacked information about the noble’s power and as such he could only take the safe choice.

After a few more minutes of searching for an ogre to hunt, they stumbled upon a weird situation. Roy looked at Robb, and with a simple eye signal, they both laid down on the ground to hide and looked at the scene in front of them.

A group of six knights was facing off against an abnormally large ogre. It measured four meters in height, and its skin was dark blue. Its silvery hair went down to its waist and it donned an array of skulls around its neck.

“Do not back down! We are proud awakened who have been blessed by lord John Kasper. We must bring glory to his name!” The knight who seemed to be the captain of the squad walked to the front and took a stance at the giant ogre.

“For lord John!” The rest of the knights let out a war cry to overwhelm both the ogre and their own fears. They unsheathed their swords and covered it with a red aura, much similar to the one the ogres coated their bodies with.

The blue monstrosity did not have a giant wooden club like the rest of its kin, but it did wear knuckles that fit on its thirty-centimeter-wide fists. With a bestial roar, the ogre took a stance and pounced at the group of knights. With a single jump, it crossed the distance of ten meters that separated them.

“Spread!” With the mighty order of their captain, the group jumped out of the monster’s attack and circled around it.

While the knights were fighting with their lives on the line against the blue ogre, Roy looked at them intently. He memorized all of their movements and skills, and calculated their strengths and weaknesses. These were the people that he would eventually need to defeat.