Locke and the others continued to kill wildlife throughout the forest without proceeding deeper towards the center. The idea was that the strength of the creatures in the outer areas would be relatively weak which allowed for quick and easy earned experience. Everything proceeded quite smoothly except for the encounter with a pack of wolves. While they did overcome the challenge there were several minor injuries which Locke had to heal afterwards.

Everyone was now taking a break going through the gains received from the lengthy grinding session which took several days. Locke was now level 6 while the other three players hit level 5. The grinding sadly was no longer very useful for Thomas and Locke. The reason for this was they no longer gained any experience from boars once they hit level 6. The wolves and bears most likely wouldn't give anything either soon. They could only assume it's because their level was too high compared to what they were killing. During the rest Locke continued to practice turning off and on the small physical boost spell.

[https://i.imgur.com/vi6gEm4.png]

He was approaching his goal of 40 wisdom quite quickly and the downside of having low physical stats wasn't much a problem right now. Rae was able to handle the front line much better now that she was higher level. She had no problem keeping up with the bears of the forest now. Locke did make a mental note that he needs to put points in agility once his goal is reached. His body was so sluggish compared to his old avatar in Odyssey and it was a struggle to overcome it.

The group also learned a bit more on how health regeneration worked in the game. Based on observation they could tell that if stamina is being burned at all the amount of health regeneration you gain is basically nothing. This means that you need to basically sit down and rest if you want to have any sort of meaningful amount of health to regenerate. That is if you stop the bleeding first of course.

Thomas made contact with his guild members through the in game chat when Locke was curious if the health return was percentage. Thomas confirmed the numbers exactly which was a surprise, they might be a good source of information in the future. You will regenerate 1% of your total life per minute while stamina is being consumed, this amount will increase to 25% while not burning stamina.

The other main reason why the group stopped for a break was because while scouting Locke noticed something odd up ahead. They were quite out of the way of the dungeon's main objective at this point so it was interesting to find what looked to be smoke coming from a camp fire or something in the distance. Everyone already decided it was worth while to investigate the source of the smoke but wanted to be prepared when they did so.

“So what do you think it might be? I doubt there would be any other players in the tutorial...so it has to be monsters right?” Rae spoke up.

“Well my guild stated there would be goblins as you got close to the objective, I am just curious why they are way out here?” Thomas scratched his head.

Locke was going to speak his mind but decided to hold back at least for now. His thoughts leaned towards the fact that the NPC's stated the tutorial was important. At first glance you would assume that meant the previous tutorial area which had infinite HP, mana, stamina, and no sleep. However, there is no reason to think that this one is any less important. This dungeon was massive which meant a high chance of optional objectives if you searched hard enough.

“Do you think there will be a lot of them? Are we strong enough to fight goblins?” Jason asked.

“I sure hope so, goblins are supposed to be among the weakest monsters you fight in these types of games,” Thomas replied, “Just follow my lead and we should handle it no problem”

“That is assuming it is actually goblins” Locke decided to chime in.

“Good point, we should scout the situation a bit better first,” Thomas answered.

The party continued to converse until Sheila quickly shot up out of her seated position and stared directly towards the direction of where they saw the plumes of smoke.

“Somethings out there.” Sheila said in a hushed tone, but loud enough for everyone to hear.

Locke only heard a twig snap before all hell broke lose. Three large Javelins came flying out of the dense brush. Luckily he had small physical boost active giving him 25 more agility points allowing him narrowly dodge the one aimed at his chest. Thomas took one to his left shoulder, but it didn't pierce very deep into his body due to his higher than normal endurance attribute. However, Sheila wasn't so lucky as she took the large projectile straight into her forehead, the force launched her head and body backwards until it hit the ground with a heavy thud.

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Locke glanced briefly at Sheila only to find that she remained lifeless on the ground. The Javelin pierced so deep into her skull that there was zero chance that she was still alive. Normally there would be no way to know for sure as there was not a party screen that showed everyone's HP totals like in most games.

Jason looked horrified as he went to Sheila's side crying telling her to get up. Locke sort of understood where he was coming from, the game was so realistic that there were going to be instances where someone forgets they are playing a game. The sight of someone close to you being killed gruesomely like that could potentially be traumatizing. Previous games censored stuff like this in their on unique ways so it's was an interesting choice to leave something like this in. Were the developers not afraid that it would affect how many people would continue playing their game?

Meanwhile three large figures rushed out of the bushes while Thomas moved to engage them. Both Locke and Thomas had surprised looks on their faces when they saw what their assailants were. They were massive orange skinned goblins wearing decent quality armor and weapons. The name plate above the monsters heads showed that they were hobgoblins. It looked like the hobgoblins were forgoing any tactics and each just picking a target from the group to attack.

Thomas clashed with the hobgoblin that carried a two hand battleaxe while Rae moved to intercept the one wielding a greatsword that was closing in on Jason.

“Stay away from my brother!” She yelled as she planted a kick into the monsters side. The kick didn't seem to affect the hobgoblin much aside from getting it's attention.

The one charging towards Locke had a glaive held in both hands.

“Well, this is dangerous......looks like I should take this a bit more seriously,” Locke thought to himself as he drew one of his swords with his right hand. So far he had only fought using his magic and fists just to try something new, but this situation didn't allow for holding back.

Sidestepping to the left he dodged the first thrust from the hobgoblin and countered by swinging his sword horizontally towards it's neck. With a quick fluid upward motion with the tail end of the glaive shaft the monster blocked the swing. This pushed Locke's sword upward leaving him completely open to attack. Seeing the opening it slashed towards his throat causing him to lean backwards to avoid the attack, the sharp edge just barely passing his nose. With a quick stab Locke connected with the right arm of the Hobgoblin but it barely pierced into it's flesh. It retaliated with a wide arcing swing forcing Locke jump backwards creating some distance between which was most likely it's goal.

The hobgoblin was trying to keep it's opponent with shorter range away which under normal circumstances was smart. The problem was it didn't realize Locke could cast spells with his free hand as he sent an ice spear into its chest. He used a decent amount of mana to test the waters, but it didn't appear to do much damage. At this point Locke knew that this fight was going to take a while but he was also short on time. To be able to dodge their attacks effectively he needed to have the agility boost running, but it was draining his mana. Locke was also worried about the others but couldn't afford to divert his attention away from his foe just yet who was once again charging forward glaive in hand.

The sound of an axe dragging downwards on a shield could be heard in the distance as Thomas continued to fight his foe. The strength behind the monsters attacks were no joke and he knew taking a clean hit would probably be his downfall even with his high endurance. The Javelin that hit his shoulder previously took out almost a quarter of his HP.

Once the weight behind the enemies attack lessened he shoved the greataxe back with his shield and activated a weapon skill. With his axe glowing he slashed at the enemy and connected onto it's chest leaving a wound that started bleeding immediately. The skill he used allowed his weapon to cause bleeding on a foe that he strikes. Finally finding the opening to strike and connecting with this skill Thomas believed his victory was almost assured. Now all he needed to was outlast his enemy while it's health drained away. The hobgoblin looked at the wound, then back at the smiling Thomas only to laugh and continue to attack once more.

Rae on the other hand wasn't fairing very well versus her opponent. Several wounds on her body showed that she was not able to completely dodge the enemies attacks. The hobgoblin so far had not been able to land any vital strikes in key areas such as her head or heart. Even then Rae's HP was down to below half and her forehead was drenched in sweat due to how nervous she was. From her talks with Thomas her fists will take into account both her Strength and Endurance stats when causing damage but most of her points were put into agility so far. This wasn't a problem when facing the wildlife but against the hobgoblin she was actually losing a slight amount of HP when attacking it as well as a tinge of pain. Most likely this was because it's endurance was much higher than hers causing the feeling similar to punching a wall.

The system generates pain differently than real life, it should never be unbearable and will be quick. It's only goal is to signal the loss of HP, the more HP lost the more pain. There was an option to turn off that specific safety protocol allowing pain to be more realistic, but why would you unless you are a masochist. This meant that Rae felt this quick pain every time she punched the creature, which caused her to be more hesitant to attack. Even without the pain losing HP in this situation was not good.

Rae continued to dodge the creatures attacks while looking for a solid opening on an unarmored area. One such opening finally appeared when it sent it's greatsword in a powerful downward swing attempting to cleave her in two. Once it missed the weapon appeared to be stuck in the ground, capitalizing on the situation she launched herself forward with a kick aimed at it's head with as much power as she could muster. The kick was about to land until it was abruptly stopped with the monsters right hand and she was then lifted off the ground. Meanwhile the greatsword fell to the ground with a thump as the hobgoblin discarded it's weapon to catch Rae. A yell from Jason and a chain of firebolts slammed into it's body but the creature brushed off the attacks like they were nothing as it raised its other hand to strike at her.