Kryzen called all the gremlins in the dwelling and grouped them up before him. He then took a seat on his throne which was a tall but comfortable boulder. Rounding up the gremlins wasn’t too hard considering his recent feats of defeating the goblins were quickly spread by the witnesses.
The gremlins were also able to tell that Kryzen was a lot stronger than all of them. It was an instinct inherent in all weaker beings to sense those stronger than themselves.
Kryzen watched as the last of the gremlins gathered before and then he proceeded to simply inspect the weak bunch before him, none of them were special in anyway and were all baseline gremlins. These baseline gremlins would be barely considered a level one if they were in a video game.
As individuals they were nothing much but together, they were… still weak. Kryzen could reveal the system to the gremlins but it probably wouldn’t be of much use since most of the gremlins weren’t like him and had subpar intelligence. The curse would probably scare them to death given how cowardly the gremlins are, so instead Kryzen decided to put them to a different use.
He decided to use them as scouts. Given how huge the mines were there bound to be many tunnels some of which would give access to special places. Kryzen didn’t want to spend too much time to search for all these tunnels himself so he would ask the gremlins to do it.
Some of the older gremlins probably new of some special tunnels too so he decided to question them. Kryzen shifted a bit on his throne, coming out of his thoughts and focussing on the gremlins. The poor gremlins were fidgeting and felt nervous seeing the strongest gremlins simply stare at them.
“All of you will search the mines for tunnels and report them to me. If you know of any special tunnels and places then inform them to me now and one more thing, never ever leave our territory and go to the junction for whatever reason. Even if its food.”
Kryzen finished the last part while staring at the now recovered small gremlins at the corner of the crowd, making it look down nervously.
“Dismissed.”
The gremlins gave him puzzled looks. Kryzen exasperated sigh and said,
“It means you can go now.”
‘Stupid gremlins and their limited vocabulary.’
He waved them off and then called over the small gremlin. It nervously came forward and stood before him. Kryzen then commanded it,
“Get me some of the strongest stone ore there is the tunnels.”
The small gremlin quickly nodded and scurried away. Kryzen had a satisfied smile on his face as he went over the events in his head.
‘I could totally get used to this leader thing.’
It was very easy to make himself the leader of gremlins given how a simple feat of killing a couple of goblins made them bow towards him. Thinking of his fight with goblins Kryzen remembered the feelings of bloodlust.
He was by no means a violent person in his previous life and had no experience in any fights other then a few scuffles as a child. Kryzen looked at his hands and his eyes drifted to his claws. There was dried goblin blood on it. The sight of the blood awoke some of the bloodlust he felt in the fight.
Kryzen looked away from his hands and composed himself.
‘Weird. Must be a gremlin thing. Gremlins no matter how weak, are still monsters in the end.’
The bloodlust certainly did help in overcoming any moral restrictions and fear he had towards killing. Even now when he thought about the dead goblins, he didn’t feel any disgust or some sort of psychological trauma.
It scared him to think so but the truth was the killing felt very…natural. Kryzen shook his head and turned towards the small gremlin that was hurriedly coming towards him. In its hands were a stone that was blueish grey.
One of the benefits of being in a mine was that he had access to plenty of raw material. Now none of the metal ore that was typically mined was of any use to him but stone could be carved into a weapon with his stronger and durable claws.
He didn’t plan on getting into any fights too soon but it was better to be safe then sorry. His claws were excellent natural weapons but Kryzen thought perhaps a knife would give him more versatility in combat.
A gremlins claws were very durable and given Kryzen’s stat enhancements he found it easy to carve the piece of stone into the shape of a knife. It was very crude and the edge wasn’t too sharp but its point was good for stabbing. It would do well for performing stealth kills if the need ever arose or maybe even a throwing weapon.
Kryzen looked at the finished knife and admired his work. It was 30 cm long and was made entirely of the stone the small gremlin brought. He tore a piece of cloth from one of the sacks used to carry ore and wrapped it around the handle making it easier to grip.
Now with that finished he proceeded to get up and patted the dust away. Kryzen noticed the small gremlin was nearby the entire time. He smiled beckoned it over. Having a servant/assistant would make his life much easier and Kryzen decided the small gremlin was the perfect choice.
It was probably a month old and it wasn’t very smart but it followed orders and that was enough for him. Seeing as how it would be with for the foreseeable future Kryzen decided to name him.
“You’ll be called Parvin from now on ok.”
The little guy looked happy that he had been given a name and said thanks over and over again. Kryzen then looked at a approaching gremlin. The gremlin looked to be older than him and it had waited for a long time since Kryzen was busy.
“Chief there is special special tunnel. I show you?”
Kryzen nodded and followed the gremlin while admiring his new title as chief. It appeared that in gremlin groups the leader was called a chief. Did this mean he was a leader of a tribe?
While he was pondering over the community dynamics of gremlins, they reached the location. It was a small tunnel situated near the border of the mining area. It was too far from the gremlin dwelling so few gremlins came here to mine.
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The older gremlin told Kryzen with his limited speech that he came across this tunnel a long time ago as he wanted to mine in a different place for a change of pace. He never explored the tunnel though as it was too scary and risky.
“Ok you can go now, good job.”
Sending the gremlin away, Kryzen turned towards Parvin and told him to go as well and that he would call him when needed. Watching the smaller gremlin nodding being so obedient Kryzen nodded with satisfaction.
‘Having minions is nice.’
Kryzen went into the tunnel and carefully ventured ahead. The tunnel was small but big enough for a gremlin to walk around comfortably. He had no idea where the tunnels lead but with his enhanced stats giving him a degree of confidence he slowly crept forward with his newly crafted knife in hand.
The tunnel was long and winding but thirty minutes in he found an opening. Kryzen stealthily made his way to the exit and peeked outside.
Kryzen gave a scared squeak and instantly ran back into the tunnel and looked back to make sure no one was following him.
“Fucking hell why can’t I get a break.”
Early into the adventure and he already met an army of undead. An actual full legion of Skeleton warriors with armour and everything. Hopefully they didn’t notice him and just thought he was an irrelevant insect.
‘If I had better senses maybe I could have detected absolute horror instead of having it shoved in front of my face.’
No wonder the perception stat is so important in all those novels he read. Azeroth opened his stat menu and took a look at his perception stat.
…
Attributes
Strength: 30
Dexterity: 30
Physique: 30
Perception: 5
Intelligence: 30
Energy: 3
Points: 594200
…
His perception stat was a measly five. He didn’t think it was that important though since he could see and hear normally but he was wrong. He needed better senses especially when he was exploring such as now as it could warn him of any danger and perhaps even help him spot special items and locations.
Kryzen increased his perception to thirty bringing all his stats bar energy to a round thirty. It then occurred to Kryzen that maybe he should bring his energy stat to thirty as well as he wasn’t lacking in points and maybe he would need it later.
After increasing the stats, he answered yes to the System’s confirmation box.
Kryzen stumbled and held onto the walls of the tunnel as his brained adjusted to the increased sensory input. He felt extremely nauseous and was pretty sure the world was spinning.
After a while the nausea went away and his vision became focussed. Kryzen took a look at his stats again.
…
Attributes
Strength: 30
Dexterity: 30
Physique: 30
Perception: 30
Intelligence: 30
Energy: 30
Points: 55300
…
“Perfectly balanced as all things should be.”
Kryzen grinned a toothy smile as he looked at his stats. His five senses were transformed by the perception increase as he looked around the small tunnel. All gremlins inherently had night vision but it only went so far as to make a dark cave look like a dimly lit room.
Now though the tunnels were much brighter and his vision sharper as he noticed details he didn’t before the changes. His hearing had improved tremendously as well as he could now hear the undead legion outside of the small tunnel. Kryzen was pleasantly surprised by his hearing.
‘I can still hear them from such a distance.’
It wasn’t just his five senses that were enhanced though as Kryzen somehow felt the danger in front of him. The mysterious instinct to detect danger present in every organism was boosted as well.
Oddly enough he couldn’t feel any noticeable changes from increasing his energy stat but he decided to figure it out later. Taking slow steps forward Kryzen made his way to the exit again. With each step the faint danger he felt increased.
The danger was still there but his senses told him there wasn’t anything outside the immediate area of the tunnels. Looking outside he again saw the undead army but this time he didn’t panic. The army just stood in place motionless awaiting orders.
Now that his mind wasn’t shrouded by terror, he saw that the skeleton warriors were quite far away from the tunnel. The tunnel itself was conveniently a hidden by some rocks. Kryzen exited the tunnel ensuring that he didn’t make big noises.
The undead were basically robots and when not needed could simply be stored away. They didn’t need any food, water or air and didn’t feel anything so shoving them all into a big room was the most convenient method.
At least Kryzen that’s what Kryzen thought. He looked around and spotted a tunnel far away leading away from the undead and headed to it. Slow and steady was his motto as he crept towards the other tunnel.
He couldn’t feel it before but with his augmented senses he could somehow sense that the undead were… undead?
It was faint but he could tell that skeleton soldiers were unnatural and dead.
‘It’s amazing how they just stand there, sure they are undead and all but it’s still weird. Probably reserve forces or something.’
Making his way out of the room filled with the undead, Kryzen found himself in a corridor of sorts with various tunnels leading who knows where. There wasn’t exactly a place to hide as the corridor was clean and spacious and well-lit with glowing stones.
Looking left and right Kryzen panicked as he searched for a place to conceal himself. Any moment now a undead soldier could come and slash him apart.
Just as he decided to head back into the room of full of undead and return to the safety of the gremlin dwelling Kryzen looked up, there were stalactites everywhere. The corridor was very high and the stalactites were the perfect place to hide and traverse the corridor.
Climbing up the walls was easy enough for a gremlin with their claws and he was up and hanging from the ceiling in no time. Kryzen was proud of the idea and couldn’t help but be a little proud of being a gremlin. No on other then a gremlin in the among all the monsters could climb the walls with such ease.
He slowly made his way down the corridor while straining his ears to pick up even the most remote of noises. If he heard the slightest footstep or familiar clunking of armour then he would high tail it back to tunnels as fast as possible.
Kryzen was taking a huge risk being in the open and exploring uncharted territory but there was no point in waiting as only he himself could do this and there was no time better then now. As he passed by the rooms, he took a peek inside but only found them to be undead storage rooms similar to the one he saw initially.
‘I must be in some sort of undead storage facility part of the mines.’
He continued onwards and passed numerous similar rooms. There was so much undead here that it scared Kryzen and what scared him more is the thought of the master of all these undead.
‘Surely they don’t belong to one person. I mean what are the chances I transmigrate and end up in a mine ruled by a undead King or Necromancer god.’
There were thousands of undead soldiers and Kryzen started to wonder if he was in a base of necromancers or whether there, he was actually in the kingdom of the Lich King.
Luckily the undead were all dormant and would remain that way.
Eventually he exited the storage facility and the corridor opened up to a large cave in the mines. Kryzen could see undead soldiers patrolling faraway and some taking carts full of various ore to other tunnels.
“Woah.”
If he ignored the undead the cave system was actually very beautiful and gave off a very fantasy feel with glowing rocks of various colours adorning the walls lighting the entire cave up.
The undead storage area was far away from the rest of the ongoing in the gigantic cave so Kryzen headed towards a couple of rocks and hid behind them and relaxed for a second. So far, the exploration has been good.
There was still sometime before he had to carry out his next quota of ores so he decided to continue on with exploration of the mines. Kryzen noticed nearby that there was another tunnel.
Making sure there was no guards nearby he scurried to the tunnel and climbed up to the ceiling. Steadily going down the tunnel he realized that there weren’t many tunnels connected to this one and there was only one single path.
Eventually he reached what seemed to be a huge cave. Looking around he saw garbage all around him.
‘Figures that there is a garbage dump near the storage facility.’
Kryzen looked around and saw various metal scraps and remains of weapons and armour. Some wood here and there and heaps of cloth and then,
“Jackpot”
Right in front of him was a treasure chest.