While lying on the ground, Yi Qiang thought back to the fight.

I let loose again. That was certainly fun, though!

'Letting loose' was referring to something he had developed early on into his martial training. The way he viewed it, Yi Qiang essentially had two minds. One of them was his normal, reasoning conscious, that he had even in most battles. The other was an obssessively-battle-focused manic, that Yi Qiang often had to bring to the forefront in high-stakes or particularly difficult battles. Not because that side of Yi Qiang was more skillful, but because it was more ruthless, more reckless, and more stupidly confident, which, in the right situations, is necessary to win a battle.

Yi Qiang's fight against the golem, for example, required risks. No matter how skillful Yi Qiang was, it was impossible to scale that wall of sheer stats just by playing it safe and by the book. He would get tired and die long before anything happened. No, the book was written to teach people how to fight against others in the same range of physical ability. Not to teach David how to fight Goliath.

So he had to let the 'battle mind' take over, which would make him take more risks and rely on luck more than Yi Qiang was ever trained to do. It essentially ignored all of his muscle memory to play it safe, and made him fight wildly, but still equally skillfully.

Yi Qiang disliked letting the 'battle mind' take over, however, because of two reasons: the first was that taking chances in combat was a quick way to get killed unless the situation called for it, so Yi Qiang avoided letting it take over, lest he rely on it too much in battles that don't require it, and experience defeat as a result; the second was that the 'battle mind' was insane - it only cared about battle. Yi Qiang could usually come back after the fight was over, but to him, there was always that nagging possibility that he wouldn't come back. That would make his existence a pitiful one; living from battle to battle until he died, and in this world, soon come back to life, seeking battle all over again.

Yi Qiang would rather avoid that.

Quickly, he recovered fully, in that his bars were all full, but he was still suffering from the debuff of 'Exhaustion', meaning that his regeneration was halved.

And, just in case that Yi Qiang encountered another Red Mountain Goliath, it would be an extremely bad idea to battle with his regeneration halved.

Instead, Yi Qiang went over and inspected the corpse of the monstrous creation he just managed to kill, checking out if it had dropped any items - in the tutorial, the old man mentioned that itmes could also be dropped by monsters, the rarity of them increasing based on the rarity of the monster killed.

Considered that Yi Qiang just killed a Boss monster almost twice his level, he would find it incredibly disappointing if he didn't even receive anything for it.

The moment he touched it, the corpse started to shake, shocking Yi Qiang as it quickly turned into dust, sinking no dust and leaving no trace that it was ever there. Is that what happens after I kill a monster? Yi Qiang had never seen this, since he really hadn't considered sticking around and seeing what happened to the bodies of the monsters he killed.

Three items were left in the wake of the goliath, occupying the space the monster corpse should have.

Cautiously, Yi Qiang walked over and picked up the three items, analyzing each of them.

Ring of the Red Mountain

Rare

+15 Constitution

+20 Vitality

+10 Strength

Bloodied Earth Boots

Rare

30 Armor

+10 Vitality

+5 Strength

+3 Constitution

Glowing Guardian Core

???

The first item was a crimson ring, seemingly made of stone, with a simple, circular design. Seeing no reason not to, Yi Qiang slipped it on, immediately shuddering.

An energy seemed to course through his body, strengthening it. That must be the stats that the ring increased.

The same thing happened when Yi Qiang put on the metal boots, a faint, dull red. Even though they were about 10 pounds, he barely noticed the weight with his incredible Strength stat. They did inhibit his toes, and would possibly lower his maneuvaribility, but the bonus stats were definitely worth it. Thankfully, they were skillfully crafted enough that the reduction in movement was negligible with Yi Qiang's stats.

The last item... Well, Yi Qiang had no idea what it was, and it seemed that the game didn't either. he held onto it, placing it into his quiver(Yi Qiang really had to get a bag or something). It was a large sphere, glowing red, that was warm to the touch, about the height of his hand. I hope it's not explosive or something.

Ready to move on, Yi Qiang walked ahead, significantly stronger than before. Why did he continue after meeting and barely defeating something that almost killed him? The reason was simple - he would not improve if he did not take risks and constantly challenge himself. Instead, it was this that made him realize that he was still weak. How could Yi Qiang, someone who previously stood at the peak of the world in personal strength, take that lying down?

Somewhat strangely, Yi Qiang didn't encounter any more battles, and instead just walked in silence, bow at the ready.

There was one hallway, meaning Yi Qiang didn't get lost, and could instead continue onwards without fear of losing his way.

Ten minutes afterwards, however, Yi Qiang was met with a dead end.

It was an ordinary wall, nothing suggesting that there was anything further if not for one thing. One thing that tempted Yi Qiang deeply - a hollow in the wall, exactly the size of the "Glowing Guardian Core" Yi Qiang still carried in his quiver, that had somehow managed not to burst free of the cloth container.

Well, I guess there's only one thing to do then.

He hefted the large ball into the hollow, waiting to see if anything would happen. Silence persisted for exactly two seconds, until Yi Qiang watched slack-jawed as the core began to crumble into glowing red dust, and glowing lines emerged on the previously-ordinary wall.

It was a jagged line straight down the middle of the wall, slicing directly through the similarly-centered hollow, glowing a bloody bronze light.

A deep rumbling then sounded out, and Yi Qiang tensed up once again, only to notice the now-shining wall splitting apart, different halves moving out of the way in their own respective paths. It was a door.

And light shown through, displaying to Yi Qiang what the door blocked.

Oh?