“Oh, look, XP shards,” Jeremy said, pointing towards some luminous blue crystals sticking out the wall.

“We can use our maces to break 'em off, I’d say there's 100 for each of us in there.” I nodded and we walked over, I was tempted to jog over but I could barely traverse these rocks, there was no reason to do so.

As we neared it, we saw 3 gnolls in the distance running towards us, Jeremy took the initiative as usual and hurled his mace straight into the face of one, it didn’t quite knock the fella out, but it wasn’t too far from doing so.

He tripped as he tossed it but I managed to catch him before he landed.

“Thanks.” He said, the gnolls were just about to reach us, they started to let out a roar, pounding on their chest, these gnolls looked more tougher and primal, they stood tall and proud, which was out of the ordinary for hyena people, I’m pretty sure hyenas were shy around people, I guess these ones just had enough of our shit.

They continued advancing and the first blow had been struck, Jeremy slammed his fist into the one that was already injured, knocking the gnoll out. Jeremy had slipped again but I wouldn’t be fast enough to catch him without catching a mace to the face, so I just let him get up on his own while I carefully stepped out of range and slashed a gnoll across the face.

There were two rushing towards me, ready to kill, but Jeremy had recovered quickly and managed to jump and tackle one so I could focus on the other.

The one trying to get me was fast but I was able to create distance and make sure he was hesitant about coming over to me with light bonks to the head whenever he entered my range, they sure would hurt but it was nothing incapacitating, whenever he got too close I slashed at him, but he never came too close where I could properly jam my blade into his chest.

Jeremy was coming over to me, hands bloody and face covered in bits, I knew he did not relent when he got a hold of the gnoll he tackled. I was doing well, chipping and picking off at the gnoll I was fighting, but Jeremy finished him off with a powerful punch to the back of the head.

“Damn, I didn’t know you could be so violent.” I said. “I guess there’s no choice though, I won’t fault you for it, it’s just not a common sight in my world.”

“All this talk about your world and this hardhat and light bulb shit, it is starting to convince me, but I’m pretty sure you’re just delusional.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Whatever you say.” I said. “Let's get these XP shards, how do you use them?”

“I’ll show you,” he said, swinging his mace into the wall of shards, smacking off a few, but they didn’t look damaged at all, they were just separated from the wall.

“And then you do this.” He grabbed one, cracked it open effortlessly and held it over his mouth, a single drop of some golden elixir dropping out. “They’re indestructible but real weak once they're off the wall.”

“I see,” I said, smacking some off the wall and letting the liquid drop into my mouth. It just tasted like toothpaste or mint, but he seemed very happy to taste it.

It took quite a few minutes to get 'em all down and into our mouths, there was around 200 total, but by the time we were done I had almost levelled up, I was only 10 XP away, that was one goblin or half a gnoll.

“Should we go further in or not, if there are bigger groups who know what could happen, if you were preoccupied with 2 you could probably handle it, but if I had to face 2 that’d be really hard, I only feel confident dealing with one.”

“If you think it’s worth it to recover then sure, I’m close to levelling up now anyway, I’m at 260/300”

“I’m at 190/200,” I said.

“Alright, we can probably find a goblin outside for you, get yourself to level 3 and then we can continue.”

I nodded and we walked in the opposite direction, we still had to remain very careful around those rocks. I'm not sure how humidity and dew drop made it this slippery, but I just had to deal with it. Maybe it was just the game testing anyone who came in here, who knows?

Either way, after a few minutes of walking we eventually made our way out. I took my first few breaths of proper fresh air in a while and started walking across the path we laid out with the marked trees, hoping that there would be a goblin.

And there was, the green bugger noticed us first and charged towards me, but a quick kick to the neck put it down instantly, and I had levelled up.

I was gonna go back to the cave before I allocated my stat points, I needed to figure out what stat helped me stay upright when walking more than 2 miles per hour.

We walked back and I pulled up my character sheet, reviewing my stats. My first thought was strength, maybe a strong body is a balanced body, so I allocated one point to it and started walking.

No difference, but I’m sure a little extra strength would help when the time comes for athletics.

I then moved over to mind, I’d put one point into that, the reasoning being that a strong mind was a balanced mind, maybe that translated with how my body moved.

And it worked, when I walked I felt myself not slipping or tripping at my old pace, and I could walk faster at the same quality as my old pace, I’d drop another stat point into this to gain more benefits and then I’d continue caving.

My body was strengthened and now I had the balance to use it without tripping like an idiot, this was gonna be fun.