Solomon scowled as he disassembled the dead goblin. He had walked right into an ambush. The goblins had figured out his location when he killed their scout and deduced his most likely line of approach, then set their trap.

Either that, or there were so many of them that they were lurking in wait at all possible approaches to the totem. He didn't think that they would have backed off so quickly if that were the case, though.

As it was, not only was it an ambush, but it had felt like a probing attack. He had come out of this last encounter killing one of his attackers, but the rest had walked away with a great deal of information. Information they could use to set in place a more thorough ambush next time.

The goblins seriously wanted to kill him. They had a plan for how they wanted to go about it, and they were carrying it out. If he wanted to cut off that plan before it reached its tragic conclusion, he was going to have to change things up.

First things first, he headed over to look for the goblin he'd shot. As he'd expected, it was long gone. He could see some blood on the grass where it had landed. Thanks to the magic of the system's HP healing, though, the goblin would be as good as new soon after it dug the bullet out.

He grumbled as he pulled up the system interface. It would have been nice to extend his streak of one shot leading to one kill for more than one goblin.

Solomon had turned down the Unarmed Combat skill. He didn't need three grid points badly enough to add a skill that he didn't think he'd ever max out. Besides, it was depressingly likely he'd run across monsters that he'd need to kill with his bare hand in the future, if he ever changed his mind.

It was time, though, to invest the big pile of points that he'd been saving. With a thought, Solomon put nine points into the Sharpshooter grid. It was the Hawk Eye ability that he really wanted. He needed every edge he could get to spot the goblins before they spotted him.

Finishing the Sharpshooter grid opened up two new eleven point grids: Sniper and Assault Gunner. Both followed the same pattern as before when it came to attribute points. One point for every two grid points spent, with half of the points being earmarked for Dexterity.

Sniper offered a passive fifty percent range extension. It wouldn't be very helpful with his pistol, but as he created more precise weapons in the future the value of the ability would only grow. It also offered the active ability Telescopic Vision. Just as the name suggested, it would let him use his MP to create a virtual telescopic sight. At the moment he couldn't use it for sniping, not really, but it would be a useful tool as he scouted out the goblin position.

Assault Gunner offered its own fair share of goodies. The passive ability, Flesh Wound, would toughen up his subcutaneous tissue. It wouldn't stop him from getting cut, but it would make it harder for enemies to get at his vitals. If the passive was meant to help him survive at close range, the active ability was meant to bring the pain. Cone of Destruction would turn any gun into a shotgun, multiplying the bullet fired several times over and dispersing them in, well, a cone of destruction.

Solomon again found himself torn. He liked the idea of reaching out to kill his enemies from an untouchable distance. He also liked the idea that, if he had to get stuck in a close range fight for his life, he could be confident of walking away.

Well, he didn't have to decide right away. Solomon dismissed the system screen and pulled up his inventory, removing a sheet of magisteel. He sat down and started rolling it into a tube.

One thing Solomon had kept in the back of his mind was that he needed to mind his powder economy. He could manufacture magical powder, but only so long as he had beast cores. He got beast cores by killing beasts. If he started doing all of his killing using magical powder, he'd soon be in trouble if he was burning more powder in his fights than he got back from the resulting beast cores.

He could make up the difference with the occasional spot of axe murder, but that would defeat the whole purpose of building firearms in the first place. It could also get downright dangerous if the system kept throwing stronger and stronger monsters at him.

Converting one of his goblin cores to powder was enough to more or less fill his measuring cup twice over. As long as he managed to kill one of the bastards with every other shot, he'd break even.

Solomon finished rolling up the tube and pinched one end shut. He took another piece of metal from his inventory and started tearing it into small pieces. He made a little pile of them, then picked up a few, toughened them up, and dropped them in the tube. Then he started pulling out the cores he'd gotten from the boars.

Building explosives was a more extravagant use of his magical powder. His first bomb had used six boar cores, half of what he'd gotten out of the dungeon, and a few monkey cores as well. All of that had let him punch way above his weight class when it came to the boss fight, but if he started making a habit out of tossing bombs around he'd find himself running dry of powder in short order.

Not to mention the ever present risk of finding himself in the blast radius.

He wasn't going to get the Outpost Totem by half-assing things, though. If he had been in the goblins' shoes, what he would have noticed in the last fight was that his armor had worked against their arrows but was vulnerable to their spears. He might also have noticed that he didn't have a good way to clear out a crowd of enemies in a hurry. Thus, the logical move would be to try to overwhelm him with a mass assault.

If he could see that much, so could they. Naturally, he wasn't going to just let himself be swarmed over and killed.