The Three Big Brothers in the next grotto were still waiting for the girl’s arrival.
As expected, the two Mia had defeated last time had also respawned.
Mia decided to learn from her previous lesson and optimize her input-output ratio.
First, she needed to identify her differentiated track and achieve self-value transformation through the simple reuse of advantageous resources.
Use specific levers to find the vertical field she excelled in and achieve high-dimensional positioning of the critical path.
Eliminate the waste of resources from saturated strategies, embrace change, fully break through the old ecosystem, and implement a focused approach combining points and lines.
Break through information cocoons, find disruptive tipping points in inherent thinking, and establish a reusable solution with high retention, high open rates, and high activity.
Establish a result-oriented decision-making model of having what others don’t, being better than what others have, and changing when others are better.
Simply put.
Time to pray!
Since Mia didn’t have an advantage in close-quarters combat against three Roaming Nobles, she would play to her strengths and avoid her weaknesses.
Fireball, Fireball, Fireball.
The first ball of fire smashed into the Roaming Noble closest to her, then she immediately shifted her target.
After the second Fireball was thrown, the last Roaming Noble finally made a substantive reaction to the distant Mia.
Without waiting for it to walk over, the third one arrived with a boom.
She easily dealt with the Three Big Brothers who had killed her twice.
As expected of spells.
However, the flexibility of Fireball was still a bit low; the casting wind-up was somewhat long, and the range was limited.
The girl secretly decided that the first thing she would do after leaving the cave was to find Teacher Sellen to learn Glintstone Magic.
After the flames on these Roaming Nobles died down, Mia looked for rope again, trying to tie them up firmly.
The layout of this grotto was more complex than the previous one.
Extinguished campfires, simple pot stands, thin sleeping bags…
All of it indicated that these grottos were once the shelters of the Roaming Nobles.
Having no time to carefully study what had happened here, and not finding any sturdy rope, Mia cut some sleeping bags into strips and tied the few blackened, mysteriously smelling Roaming Nobles up tight.
Before entering the next grotto, she had to climb two waist-high stone steps.
Pushing herself up somewhat clumsily with both hands, she flipped onto the steps, and the view ahead suddenly opened up.
It was a high grotto like a lightwell, with the light of the Erdtree streaming in through the cracks in the stone roof.
There’s a Godrick Soldier with a crossbow at the high point here; be careful to avoid him.
Mia, possessing memories of her past life, looked up.
High in the center of the atrium was a spanning stone arch, where a Soldier stood conspicuously with his back to the sunlight.
However, her caution came a bit late.
The moment she looked up, a Bolt flew and pierced Mia’s abdomen with a thwack.
“Guh—” Mia felt the pain.
Hit by the arrow, the girl rolled down the stone steps, but she also disappeared from the high-ground crossbowman’s line of sight.
Leaning against the stone steps, Mia panted.
A short, thick Bolt was stuck in her nerve-rich abdomen, the pain making her curl up…
But there was a clear flush of excitement on her face.
Yet, the act of curling up pulled at the wound where the Bolt was still embedded, making Mia tremble with intense pain.
She almost cried out.
“It hurts…
If I don’t pull it out, I won’t be able to move…” With her heavy breathing, blood pulsed out of the wound.
Holding her breath, Mia grabbed the shaft of the arrow remaining outside her body and pulled hard— Pfft.
An incredibly intense and prolonged convulsion followed; every muscle in the girl’s body tensed up.
“Guh—ah-ha!” The blood-stained Bolt fell to the side, its sharp barbs having pulled out several fragments of internal organs.
Mia arched her neck like a swan, eyes closed, a strange flush spreading from her ears to her neck, panting heavily while letting out soft moans through her teeth.
The intense pain caused her blood pressure to skyrocket, which meant the rate of blood loss was accelerating.
She had to treat it immediately, or she would lose another life.
A red bottle appeared in Mia’s blood-soaked hand.
Trembling, she raised the bottle and drank the Sacred Tear.
It was sweet.
Like drinking a cup of hot milk tea; though the taste wasn’t the same, the warmth still seeped into her limbs and bones.
In just an instant, a golden light appeared over the abdominal wound, flashed, and then the wound vanished.
Only a lingering trace of pain remained.
But her clothes were still covered in sticky, wet bloodstains.
Having recovered, Mia peeked out from under the stone steps, trying to find the Godrick Soldier on high.
She spotted the guy, but a Fireball wouldn’t reach that far.
She had no shield or other ranged weapons.
If it were Glintstone Magic, she could probably hit him?
Thinking of this, Mia became even more determined to learn Glintstone Magic after she got out.
In that case, she could only rely on her speed.
Another whoosh sounded, and the girl quickly lowered her head as the Bolt ricocheted off the stone.
After a brief moment of hiding, she poked her head out again, her legs tensed and ready to spring.
Soon, whoosh—another Bolt struck the stone.
That Soldier with the crossbow had good eyes, but unfortunately, his marksmanship wasn’t great.
At that exact moment, Mia leapt from beneath the stone steps.
The Godrick Soldier was reloading his crossbow; this was the perfect opening.
She started running but stumbled a bit clumsily; she hadn’t run in who knows how many years before her transmigration.
Staggering forward two steps, she regained her balance and immediately lowered her stance, sprinting toward the next tunnel entrance.
The Godrick Soldier finished reloading and pulled the trigger at Mia just as she was about to leave his field of vision.
But even with this final chance, he failed to seize it.
The Bolt brushed past the girl’s back.
Like the Roaming Nobles, the Soldier had already become hollowed, leaving only combat instincts—reload, shoot, reload, shoot.
His withered brain had no concept of things like leading a shot.
Mia had crossed the atrium and returned to the dark tunnel.
The enemies she was about to face in close quarters had changed; waiting for her was no longer a weak Roaming Noble, but a Soldier armed with a spear and a greatshield.
But Mia’s response remained unchanged.
The Soldier saw her and charged with his spear, while Mia threw a Fireball.
The seemingly physical fire struck the massive shield held by the Godrick Soldier.
As he charged, his tall and burly body was completely obscured by the shield, leaving only his head exposed.
The Tower Shield was incredibly large, bigger and thicker than any shield in Earth’s human history—exaggerated in a way that only appears in such an otherworldly setting.
It could hardly be called a shield; it was a wall, a wall taller than Mia, charging at her with a bright spear tip.
But such a shield, while undoubtedly an indestructible fortress against others using cold weapons, was a bit of a disadvantage against magic…
The Fireball exploded the moment it touched the greatshield.
Rolling flames enveloped the shield; though part of it was blocked, some bypassed the edges and directly scorched the Godrick Soldier’s head as he peeked out to observe.
With his face scorched, the hollowed warrior lost the vision needed to observe the enemy’s movements.
He let out a howl and stumbled backward, and this blind retreat exposed his shield-protected body to Mia.
Pfft— The short spear seized the opportunity and pierced the Godrick Soldier’s face.
Feeling the resistance of the skull, Mia increased her strength.
The spear paused for a moment as the Godrick Soldier took another step back.
The hardness of the skull exceeded Mia’s expectations, so she switched to a two-handed grip and lunged forward.
The blade pierced the skull with a gruesome sound, and the tall warrior of The Lands Between knelt to the ground.
Stepping on the chest of the now-motionless Godrick Soldier, she forcefully pulled out the short spear.
The Soldier fell heavily onto his back.
“Not difficult,” Mia commented.
Looking at the Godrick Soldier on the ground, Mia poked his chest with the butt of her spear, hearing the clatter of metal beneath his surcoat.
The typical “deluxe grunt” found in fantasy art.
And even more deluxe knights.
This guy had to be tied up too.
After dealing with this Soldier, she followed the tunnel.
Now, the path connecting the grottoes wound upward.
Having passed several grottoes, the Roaming Nobles were no longer an obstacle for Mia.
If there were few and scattered Roaming Nobles, she would just stab them to death with her spear to save some FP.
If there were many, she would use Prayers for support.
When encountering other Godrick Soldiers, she simply repeated the small combo of Fireball plus thrust.
After all, she was an Elden Scholar who had cleared the game eight times.
Those first two deaths were just because she wasn’t used to such a realistic world after transmigrating.
Once she became familiar with the rules, her previous experience could be put to use.
Speaking of which, she had used the two basic Prayers, Fireball and Ignite, many times, but during her progress, she had only experienced stamina exhaustion once.
This account didn’t seem like a starter account.
Her FP bar was quite long.
The next room should be the penultimate one.
She remembered that the boss of the Cave of Learning was just a Godrick Soldier using a greatsword, designed only to let players who had just started the game master the skills they just learned—not a difficult boss.
Entering this penultimate room, she didn’t find the familiar extras—the Roaming Nobles.
In this room, not a single soul was standing.
Hearing no Hollow howls, Mia frowned and looked at the anomaly ahead—it was a Godrick Soldier.
This wasn’t the boss room.
That Soldier was leaning against the rock wall.
A greatshield stood beside him, and a spear lay on the ground.
‘Is it a corpse?’ Mia glanced curiously at the Godrick Soldier lying on the ground.
He didn’t look like a threat.
Not worth much attention, Mia decided to just pass him by.
The girl’s bare feet kicked small pebbles and stepped through puddles as she walked past the Soldier’s ‘corpse.’ Sensing the sound, the Soldier moved.
Then, a raspy whisper echoed through the grotto, making Mia suppress the Fireball that was about to be unleashed from her hand.
“Oh?” “You—” The Soldier looked up.
“Where do you come from?”