Chapter 5
It was almost noon by the time Aaron exited the Hunter's Guild. It took longer than he thought.
Hunter's guild is particular when issuing someone their card. The guild was very busy, especially with the awakening ceremony that happened the day before.
The newly awakened would be issued a free entry pass for a month. Many would try to take advantage at this time to get free access using some false information. To avoid such things, they verify the information before issuing the passes.
Most awakenings would happen in schools that could afford education. There are many who couldn't afford school fees but scraped what they could to awaken using other associations. The student's info can be easily verified from schools, but to verify others it would take time.
Though his verification could be done in small time, there were others before him. So he got freed only at noon.
Since it was almost noon, Aaron postponed going to the dungeon and took out the lunch to eat before proceeding to enter the dungeon.
---
Goblin's dungeon is one of the three dungeons in control of Rock City.
Aaron sighed, looking at the queue in front of the dungeon.
'Seriously, I already went through one queue today. Why another one? If it is like this, I won't gain anything by the end of the day.'
Before entering dungeons, one would go through a serious and thorough check. The guards would only allow people to enter if they have a Hunter's Guild card. Even with that, they have to pay the fee to enter or have the free access pass.
'Should I return tomorrow? No, I am already in the queue. So I just have to wait for a little bit of time for now.'
After half an hour of checking, Aaron finally entered the dungeon.
---
As soon as he entered the dungeon, a notification popped up. He already learned about this. When a hunter enters the dungeon for the first time, they get a notification like this. The only problem is that the dungeon needed to be cleared before the name of the dungeon appears.
If this was an unexplored dungeon, the notification would just say,
Immediately after entering the dungeon, Aaron summoned his skeletons. It didn't waste his Mana as he already summoned them beforehand and stored them in the undead space.
Though this is a goblin's dungeon, it is also fatal if one wasn't cautious enough. Most of the time, goblins move in a group of three or four. Like civilized people, they also form villages to live in.
If you come across a village, then you should run before goblins find you. Once they sense your presence, they would swarm you to death.
Even fighting three or four at a time is a nightmare. So, the students in school are advised to form groups before entering a dungeon. In case they had to solo the dungeon, teachers always advised them to find the strays to attack before moving to attack groups.
Aaron advanced along the dungeon, with his skeleton summons surrounding him as guards. Even with them as assurance, he moved slowly. It is known that low-level undead summons wouldn't have intelligence. They only gain intelligence at Rank-4.
For intelligent undead, Aaron needed to upgrade the skill to Rank-4, i.e. he has to upgrade four times. With super growth talent, he didn't need to fret about upgrading his skills. All he needed is to survive at the lower ranks. Once he gains a high rank, there would be few things that could threaten him.
He walked for half an hour before he finally found a suitable prey. A few times he saw goblins, but they were in either groups or pairs. As he didn't know how powerful they actually are, he decided to play it safe.
After half an hour of the waiting game, he found a stray which left its group. It was equipped with loin cloth on its body and a wooden club in its hand.
It didn't pay any attention to its surroundings. Normally, on the outside, this won't be the case. In this dungeon, where there is only one dominant race, they don't have to be on guard.
When the hunters enter the dungeon, they would enter their own copy of the dungeon. So things that happen in one copy has nothing to do with the other copies, at present or in the future. The copies would be of default settings.
Of course, there are anomalies that happen once in a while, but they would affect only the specific copy of the dungeon.
Aaron slowly sneaked on the goblin. The monster was oblivious to its impending death.
When the distance was reduced to three meters between them, Aaron commanded the skeletons to attack. All five of them pounced on the goblin at once.
The goblin didn't even have an idea of what was happening before its life ended.
[Killed a goblin. You gained 5 XP.]
[Super growth talent activated. XP gained increased to 50 XP.]
"Nice, the fight ended before it started. Though the skeletons are considered weak, a single goblin would by no means be a problem for them, especially when it is a surprise attack."
After that, Aaron spent till night hunting stray goblins one by one. He made sure not to make any mistakes because of his ego.
By night, he hunted a total of ten goblins and gained a total of 500 XP and thereby increasing his level by one.
--
Name: Aaron Skyhart
Age: 18
Class/Profession: Death Mage, S-Rank
Rank: 0
Level: 1 (400/1000)
Talent: Super Growth (SS-Rank) (Unique)
Vitality: 10
Strength: 8
Stamina: 10
Agility: 8
Intelligence: 15
Wisdom: 15
Health: 100
Mana: 150
Free Status Points: 50
Skill Points: 20
Spells: Summon Undead (5/5) (Rank 0); Death Lash (Rank 0); Sprint (Rank 0);
--
For every level-up, one would be rewarded 5 free status points and 2 skill points. It is one of the reasons why no one would learn many skills but stick to a few useful to them.
Skills can be leveled up with use, but the time it would take for that to happen increases as the rank of the skill goes up. Increasing a skill rank just by using it continuously is not easy. It would appear easy at first but once the skill reaches Rank-3, reaching Rank-4 it would take a lot of their time.
Though a lot of skill points are required for this, no one can wait for a long time. So most people would only use this method for a skill to reach Rank-1 or 2. After that, everyone uses skill points to progress.
This is also because they could save skill points for later rank-ups.
For a skill to reach Rank-1, it requires only 1 SP, but Rank-2 requires 3 SP and Rank-3 requires 5 SP. This is where the change happens. Rank-4 requires 10 SP, 20 for Rank-5, and 40 for Rank-6. Another change occurs here.
As one's skill reaches higher rank, a lot of skill points are required, but one can only get 2 SP for every level-up.
Aaron has a clear advantage here. With his talent, he leveled up with fewer kills and got more Skill points and Status points.