"Agh... Smell is becoming too much," Magna muttered, grimacing at the piles of rock, each one hiding his disgusting little secret underneath.
That wasn’t the only thing turning the cave foul, either. The burnt goblin corpses had begun to spoil.
He’d already lost any appetite he’d had. Still, forcing himself, he made his way back into the chamber and picked out a body still intact.
His enhanced nose caught the shift in the meat’s smell at once, telling him plainly enough that it had already started losing its freshness.
Still, this was the last round before Gaia’s bar would fill.
Ignoring the risk of poisoning himself, he took the gamble and started eating.
Taste wise, there wasn’t a scrap of difference from before. Just as disgusting as ever.
Just as he was about to finish off the big chunk in his hand, he felt the warmth building inside him, right on the edge of breaking through.
With the last swallow, the response he’d been waiting so eagerly for finally arrived.
[Energy accumulation threshold reached.]
[Please select a method to utilize the gathered energy.]
"That’s it. I’m going vegetarian after this." He tossed the meat aside at once and turned his attention to the options.
’They had better be good,’ he thought, or at least worth the risk he’d taken and the agony he’d put himself through.
[Option 1: Expend 100% of accumulated energy to gain the core traits and instincts of a battle-hardened warrior.]
[Option 2: Expend 100% of accumulated energy to gain the core traits and instincts of a cold-blooded assassin.]
[Option 3: Expend 100% of accumulated energy to gain the core traits and instincts of a patient archer.]
Magna found himself taken aback all over again by what stood in front of him.
"It can do that too?"
Up until now, whatever the options offered had one thing in common, they only reshaped his body, physical changes and nothing more.
The one exception had been that single scan of the area around him, a hundred and fifty meters out. Beyond that, they’d always come down to the same sort of thing at their core.
This time, though, what sat in front of him was something rather more than physical. This was a change of mind.
Once he understood that, the choice grew a good deal easier.
"So I just need to work out which traits I actually want? Bit like picking a class in a game. I like that."
That, in fact, was the very reason he’d always loved games so much. Whichever character he picked, he could play the part to perfection every time.
Turning back to the classes at hand, he reckoned the traits of a battle-hardened warrior would likely bring proficiency with swords, spears, shields, that sort of thing, along with the courage and battle lust that came bundled with a proper warrior.
Courage, above everything, was exactly what he needed most, and it became his favorite before he’d even glanced at the second option.
The cold-blooded assassin, for his part, brought courage to mind as well, though rather more about dulling things down like fear and empathy.
That, as it happened, was actually a quite solid setup for someone in his position, trying to survive in a world cruel enough to abandon a newborn to die.
And if his guess held, the assassin package would likely come with a knack for concealment, knife work, throwing weapons, maybe even decent hand-to-hand skills built on high reflexes.
It would pair rather nicely with the enhancement he already had, the one that had doubled all five of his senses.
The last option was the archer, "patient" sitting right there in its description.
It wasn’t hard to guess what traits and instincts came with that one. Not bad, certainly, but it didn’t quite match what he needed right now.
He already had patience enough to spare, no need for more of it.
Besides, every one of these classes came with their own weapon choice.
He was fairly sure he could dig up knives and swords somewhere in the cave, if he went looking, but he hadn’t seen a single goblin carrying a bow.
For one thing, a bow needed constant upkeep, the sort of thing goblins clearly didn’t bother with, or possess at all. The other weapons, meanwhile, could still be used well enough, rust, chips, and all.
That narrowed it down easily enough to two, a cold-blooded killer or a hot-blooded battle maniac.
A tough call either way, since both would, without question, leave him a bit mentally unwell.
Not that "normal" was much of a word he could apply to himself right now anyway.
Then he made up his mind, settling on the one he believed would make him the better version of himself.
Faye picked her way through the dark tunnels of the cave.
The smell hanging in the air, assaulting her nose from every side, was nearly unbearable, and the darkness swallowing most of what she could see wasn’t much help either.
Still, her face didn’t shift, not even slightly.
This was her very first trial, her first time throwing herself into danger of this sort. And yet the traits she’d inherited from her mother, from the Winterborne line, were enough to hold her in that same cold, unbothered state, even here.
Her indifferent look only broke once she drew close to a body lying on the stone floor.
’A goblin?’
The corpse was hard enough to make out, burned entirely to a crisp as it was. But taking a closer look, and knowing this was meant to be their lair, she felt fairly sure it had to be a goblin.
Her brow furrowed, just slightly.
This wasn’t what she’d expected to find down here.
She needed a living one, not a corpse, and certainly not one scorched like this.
Hoping to find something living further in, she kept on walking, until she reached a large chamber, and her frown deepened considerably.
Inside sat even more goblin corpses, every last one of them burned to death.
"A fire Witch... Really?" she muttered, plainly annoyed, as though she despised the very word fire.
What was more, judging by the bodies and the half-melted state of the cave walls around them, whoever had cast the spell couldn’t have been weak.
To manage this kind of destruction, the caster would have needed to be at least as strong as a Witch who’d passed her third trial, perhaps even her fourth.
For Faye, still only on her first, someone like that was well out of reach.
She briefly weighed turning back, since staying would be dangerous enough if the caster was still somewhere in the cave.
Before she could settle on anything, she felt the cold, sharp edge of a blade press against her throat.
Then a low voice murmured, right by her ear.
"Who are you?"