After that painful leveling experience, my status now looks like this.

{Name - Rick}

{Age - 20}

{Race - Hobgoblin (Low)}

{Level - 35 (50/1050)}

{Health - 40/40}

{Mana - 2/5}

{Strength - 22}

{Agility - 17}

{Intelligence - 14}

{Endurance - 19}

{Stat Points - 0}

{Skills}

{Velora (Unique)}

{Dash (common) (5 Mana)}

Wait, two out of five mana?! Does it really take that long for mana to replenish Velora?

[At your current level of strength, you will recover approximately one mana point each hour passed. Continue to level up and evolve to up this speed.]

That's really a snail's pace, can’t be having that. Gotta really put the pedal to the metal with this leveling business.

Considering I’m only two tiers below what Jaba was when I last saw him, just getting to that level should be enough for me, then I can return. Hopefully, the stone monsters have yet to attack, and the tribe is still going strong.

It would really suck returning home to a destroyed tribe, because at the end of the day, what’s a goblin without his tribe? Nothing that is.

A goblin should be around other goblins, especially when it seems like everything in this world seems to want to wipe us off the map or take advantage of us. So I’ll hunt to Jaba’s level and quickly return.

While I’m on the matter, Velora at what level will I evolve to be a high-tier hobgoblin?

[Not enough information to determine that as of the current moment, but keep in mind the higher your level gets, the fewer experience points you'll receive for killing lower leveled monsters..]

Well, I guess knowing wouldn’t have changed the fact that I just need to go around killing a bunch of monsters and I’ll eventually evolve.

Okay, let's use the last bit of daylight I have left to dispose of the wolf remains at a location far from here so as to not attract monsters to my rest spot.

After that, it’s eating a little, a bit of rest for the night then continuing to hunt until I reach where I want to be!

And that is exactly what Rick did for an entire week. He hunted monsters of various sizes, strengths, and abilities. From small strong ones to big weak ones, he’d fought and killed it all. He’d done so much relentless fighting over the course of the week that you could no longer refer to him as just a goblin.

Even calling him a strong hobgoblin would cease to do him the appropriate justice.

No, Rick could only be described in one word, a Warrior.

He became a warrior in the truest sense of the word, capable of fighting beasts stronger than himself, his senses almost seemed to become one with the world itself.

As if he was born to battle, born to fight, born to give his opponents every single thing he could bring forth and then some. Although on the inside he was still that cheerful goblin, who only sought to better his race, he became a different being altogether once engaged in battle.

He became an existence that only yearned for the absolute decimation of any adversary he seemed to face, but accompanying this yearning, was the pure joy he experienced in any fight he participated in.

Something he thought he’d only do out of necessity, he developed a solid and profound love for the ways of battle, but he never let this deep love distract him from the fight or urge him into reckless decisions.

This was partly due to the respect he gained for fighting. He eventually seemed to believe that a fight should be ended at the earliest convenience, meaning mercy, and hesitation were two words he became distant with.

He wholeheartedly thought that a true fight should end as quickly as the fighter’s abilities dictate, but each second of that fight should be enjoyed to the fullest extent.

One might question how could someone change so much in the span of just one week, but they would fail to realize the gravity of getting into fights where your life was on the line for every single second every day for that entire week, due to that, it's no surprise that Rick’s mentality went through such a drastic change.

Even though his personality was still the same, his views on battling and his strength and technique in said battles both went through significant changes.

This brings us to the current situation, a situation deep in the forests north of the lake, where Rick stood unabated in front of the strongest monster he had seen since entering the forest. In fact, Rick believed this monster might be stronger than the wolf that he and Jaba almost died fighting.

Standing not too far from the beast was a tall and muscular hobgoblin at the peak of the mid-tier, just a step away from evolving into a high tier hobgoblin.

Covered in head to toe in the pelts he got from killing various beats such as wolves and even some type of monster deer, and while some pieces like the loincloth around his waist were crudely made, others such as his makeshift vest showed off just how much effort he placed into getting better at skinning.

With a wooden spear that matched him in height and was topped with a sharpened bone that took him one entire day to make, and a couple of rather long fangs now turned daggers at his waist, Rick stood his ground firmly in the face of the beast in front of him.

Not taking a step forward or backward, he just stood there, with every single cell in his body screaming danger.

Apart from his natural instincts telling him to flee, there were two reasons that caused additional worry for Rick, the first one being that when Velora tried to use discern on the creature, only question marks showed up.

The other reason, and probably the reason that brought Rick more worry was the fact the creature spoke to him.

“Haven’t seen a goblin of your size in a long time. Where’d you come from?”

Said a fox-like creature that only reached Rick’s waist in height, it was covered in a caramel color pelt, that was dotted with black spots.

The feature that stood out the most, though, was its eyes. Pitch black, with fiery blazing red pupils in the center.

Just looking into its eyes was enough to give Rick a sense of fear. Although this fox-like monster was smaller than Rick, it definitely wasn’t any weaker, something Rick could immediately feel.

So with seeing no way to beat the monster, Rick could only respond to its question as he remained in a constant state of alertness.

“South of here.” Replied an extremely tense Rick. Although he spoke somewhat calmly, his mind was anything but.

FUUCCKKKKK, WHERE THE HELL DID THIS DAMN DEMON FOX THING COME FROM!!

Velora!! There has to be a way to get out of this right?! Please tell me you have a solution!

[The situation exceeds current capabilities, I advise caution.]

Dammit!

“South huh. Are there more of you?”

There’s no way I can sell out my fellow goblins back home right?! What the hell do I say?!