The World of Tactics

Chapter Eleven IV: Battle Continues

"I have been studying our ancestries, histories, and whatnot. However, I have never found the truth as to why only humans and other humanoid beings would have crests only instead of soul core (human/barbarians, elves, gnomes, dwarves, dragons, mermaids, and many other humanoid beings). I finally realized something else. I need to find the dragon. I met up with the elusive elves and they also barely had such records on hand. The only other direction that I could go forward was the long-lived dragon.

Dragons were known to be long-lived and as long as I could communicate with the dragons, I would be able to learn and pen down those long-forgotten histories. Dragons are famed for being ferocious and wild. Even if my crest was the titled, Wyvern Lord, there is no guarantee that I would be safe. By the time this paper has reaches your hand, I will be long gone. Forgive me, my daughters, but my obsession has led me so far already and I will not stop until I reach my answer. Do not search for me." Written by the titled Wyvern Lord Gillard to his daughters.

---

Naturally, since it was the goblin's turn to act. The sixth goblin right besides Uzi was the one to attack first and another goblin died. Uzi did not take any damage at all. Meanwhile, the sixth goblin was bitten in the neck and died instantly and that was how Uzi reached the max level (Uzi, EXP +40, Level up). He pops the two unallocated points into Uzi's maximum health points and defense. Uzi has reached the maximum possible level at level twenty. The experience on Uzi's status screen had two familiar dashes on it.

As for the rest of the knuckleheads, the remaining six goblins really can not tell how far apart the difference in stats between them and Uzi is at all. Uzi has nicely dispatched the remaining six goblins with ease. He could not wait to rush to the hobgoblin's corpse after the gridline started to disappear and when the fog cleared away. After asking Mike to lend him the bronze sword, he quickly hurried to start dissecting the hobgoblin. He went straight to the chest of the hobgoblin and easily found the heart. He also easily obtains the soul core of the hobgoblins. The status screen of the hobgoblin reads:

[Name: N/A][Race: Hobgoblin][Level: 16/36][Rank: 1][HP: 16/16] -2

[STR: 5(16) / [1][2][3][4][5][][][][][][][][][][][] ] -2

[MAG: 0(8) / [][][][][][][][] ] -2

[SKL: 1(12) / [1][][][][][][][][][][][] ] -2

[SPD: 4(16) / [1][2][3][4][][][][][][][][][][][][] ] -2

[LCK: 1(20) / [1][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] ] -2

[DEF: 4(16) / [1][2][3][4][][][][][][][][][][][][] ] -2

[RES: 0(8) / [][][][][][][][] ] -2

[Hidden: [CON: 8][MOV: 6][SKILL: Axe User][EXP: 0/100][WEA: Axe: C]]

As he had expected, the soul core of the hobgoblin was reflectively weaker than when it was alive. However, what matters the most was that he got a hobgoblin that could still level up twenty times. With quick math, twenty levels equate to forty unallocated points and this should be enough to max out strength, speed, and defense. Then this hobgoblin would have become his strongest unit out of all of the current units that he had acquired. The rush that he got from thinking so whetted his appetite to become strong, even stronger.

Not only that, the most important thing was the skills and the weapon mastery of the hobgoblin. With max strength, along with a gigantic iron ax made his image of the hobgoblin even stronger. He felt that nothing could beat him now after he finished maxing out his hobgoblin's levels. For now, he named the hobgoblin Big Goon and the image of the hobgoblin does indeed look like a big goon. He felt like he had forgotten something after the battle, but brushed it away.

He turned away from the hobgoblins and started to work on the goblins. He collected all of the soul cores from the goblins while he settled the corpses into a mound twenty or so meters away from their campfire. Since the blood of the goblins was painted close to the campfire. When he and Mike settle down near the fireplace, the b****y smell still lingers around them. Luckily, the wind blew in the other direction after a while before, the smelly blood was blown away from their direction.

He checks up on Dork's status and he realizes how much Dork had leveled up. Before he bought Dork, Dork was only a level five miniature donkey. The previous battle enabled Dork to level up to level six. This time, though, Dork directly went from level six to level eight. Overall, Dork's two levels are pretty weird. Dork gains two points in health points, magic, defense, and one point in speed. He could get the fact that Dork's magic is pretty high, but why is Dork's defense going up instead of resistance? He felt that Dork would lead toward a fragile mage instead of a tanky mage.

As for Mike, he finally remembers what his initial plans were. Mike had no hands on the goblins. Hence, Mike got neither experience nor level up. It was then that he realized that Mike was missing all of his actions. However, it was fine since Uzi maxed out and became a strong unit within his arsenal. More than anything else, the happiest thing that he got was Big Goon's soul core.

Thinking of Big Goon, he realizes that Goon's inability to evolve has limited Goon's growth.

He put a few more dried branches into the burning fire and laid his back on Dork's body. He took out Goon's soul core to look at it one last time because he knew that this might be the last time he would be giving his attention to Goon. However, he discovers something new within Goon's status screen and it reads:

[Goblin's Soul Core - Absorb to gain experience or be summoned during the battle preparation phase. The stronger the summons' levels and the absorber's current level, the more varied the experiences the absorber can get. A summoned goblin can not evolve (Requires a hobgoblin's soul core). Soul core will dissipate when it dies during battle.]

[Name: Goon][Race: Goblin][Level: 19/20][Rank: 1][HP: 18/18]

[STR: 8(8) / [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] ] R

[MAG: 0(5) / [][][][][] ]

[SKL: 1(6) / [1][][][][][] ]

[SPD: 2(8) / [1][2][][][][][][] ]

[LCK: 0(10) / [][][][][][][][][][] ]

[DEF: 8(8) / [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] ] R

[RES: 0(5) / [][][][][] ]

[Hidden: [CON: 4][MOV: 4][SKILL: N/A][EXP: 13/100][WEA: Axe: D]]

[Equip: Wooden Club][Wooden Club (Crude): Might +1, Hit +68, Crit +2, Weight=6.5, Durability: 4/25]

[Absorption: 6 EXP]

Nothing changes about Goon's figure. The same goes for Goon's stats as well. However, he discovers something else in Goon's description. Somehow, he finds a note saying that Goon requires a hobgoblin's soul core before Goon can evolve. Then it hit his mind, he could sacrifice Big Goon's soul core. This might lead Goon to be able to evolve into a hobgoblin instead. This also means that Goon would be able to gain the benefits of evolving, which equates to a few levels.

However, he hesitates about whether Goon would be able to gain one point or two points allocation. If it was the latter, then everything would be fine, but if it was the former, then Goon would not be as strong as Big Goon would have been. He had an internal struggle for quite a while since this is an important matter to consider. On one side, he had Goon's hand, who had been quite helpful ever since he went out of the mansion. Meanwhile, he currently does not have much attachment to Big Goon as he had with Goon. Finally, his familiarity with Goon has won his internal battle and he decides to evolve Goon while sacrificing the core of Big Goon.

It was only then that he realized that he did not know how to evolve Goon at all. Goon's description only says that it requires a hobgoblin's soul core. He tries to make sure Goon's soul core touches Big Goon's soul core, but that does nothing. He completely gives up after he tries all sorts of weird things. He spooks Mike and Dork during their sleep while doing one of the trials and errors. Nothing happens and it is better to start cooking some wolf meat over the burning fire.

When he opened his inventory, he noticed something incredible. One, his inventory screen, now has two more additional tabs and they are both called [Soul Fusion] and [Evolution] tabs. It was an interesting find. He checks out the [Soul Fusion] tab first. Like the tab's name, he could see some familiarity. One was the single squared slot that took over half of the left half of the screen. Meanwhile, on the right half of the screen. He saw little squares that had some general pixelation of goblins and wolves along with their names and whatnot.

He found Goon's name on the second square while Uzi's name and pixelation on the first square. He tried touching Uzi's pixelation and a few animations later, Uzi was quickly moved to the left square slot on the left half of the screen. While Uzi was slotted on the left, all of the wolves', goblins', and hobgoblin's square edges lighted up. When he pressed on a few, it had a red checkmark laid on top of their square. He also saw a counter on the right side of where Uzi was slotted in and it read:

[Uzi][EXP: --/100][+0EXP]

He realizes what [Soul Fusion] was. It was one where he could level up a unit of his choice by using the soul cores that he currently has. Other than that, when he presses on Uzi's pixelation on the slotted square on the left half of the screen. Everything was canceled, Uzi went back to the original square, the highlighted squares were back to normal, and all of the red marks also disappeared. It was an interesting concept and he liked it a lot.

He did not hurry at all to move on to the last tab. He selected Goon to be the primary, while he also selected a goblin's soul core at the level of twelve and he saw that there were new changes. The experience that Goons would get was only twenty experience points. So, he decided to add in all of the level eleven and twelve goblins as well. It reads:

[Goon][EXP: 13 -> 93/100][+80EXP]

He had already selected three-level twelve goblins along with two-level eleven goblins, but it was only enough to push Goon's experience to ninety-three points. Goon misses seven experience points before Goon can level up. True enough, he selected another seven more low-level goblins and it barely reached one hundred experience points. After that additional seven selections, he could not select any other units at all. He realizes that there is a hidden mechanic involved. He could not go push the original experience over one hundred experience points.

This means that if he were to use five-level twelve goblins, then he would be missing out on thirteen points of experience. Even so, he pressed on the [Fuse] icon just below Goon's slotted square. After a few seconds of pretty good pixilation animation where all of the selected units drew a white line toward Goon's current placement. The pixilated sound effect was also quite good as well. A few beats here and there, he saw a long bar of what seemed like a greenish experience increasing to the max. He finally saw the end of the animation (Goon, EXP +87, Level up).

However, some were strange. Goon now does not just have one unallocated point given, but now Goon has got two unallocated points. He realized that Goon's and Uzi's initial rank did not matter at all. He faintly remembers now. The moment he reaches level twenty, his rank has gone up to two. In conjecture with his previous rank of one, that explains why Goon could only get one unallocated point at every level, unlike Uzi who was able to gain two points at a time. This means that the higher his rank is, the stronger his units become when they level up. This also means that he did not need to be as strong as his unit and it would be fine as long as his rank is up.

He moves on to the next tab after he assigns both points to Goon's speed. He did have some plans for increasing Goon's health points, but he felt that Goon needed the points in the speed stat. The [Evolution] tab looks similar to the previous [Soul Fusion] tab. However, this time, Goon was the only one that was lighting up. It seems that all of the others, including Uzi, did not meet any evolutionary requirements. Since Goon was the only one, he selected Goon for the left slot. Afterward, he finally saw that Big Goon was lit up and he did not wonder anymore. He selected Big Goon as the evolutionary material for Goon.

He knows for sure that Goon will gain two allocated points each now. That means that evolving into a hobgoblin is much more beneficial than having Big Goon. Likewise, he is much more attached to Goon than any other units that he had on hand. Next, he calmly presses on the [Evolve] icon just below Goon's slotted placement. This time, unlike the previous animation. He saw a hologram of Goon attracting bits and blobs of shining lights clump together while rushing toward Goon. It was the same spectacle that he saw during the battle, but this time it was just within his [Evolutionary] tab.

As expected, Goon has become a hobgoblin and the increase in strength was favorable. Goon's current status screen reads:

[Name: Goon][Race: Hobgoblin][Level: 20/40][Rank: 2][HP: 20/20] +2

[STR: 10(16) / [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][][][][][][] ] +2

[MAG: 0(8) / [][][][][][][][] ] +0

[SKL: 2(12) / [1][2][][][][][][][][][][] ] +1

[SPD: 6(16) / [1][2][3][4][5][6][][]][][][][][][][] ] +2

[LCK: 1(20) / [1][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] ] +1

[DEF: 10(16) / [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][][][][][][] ] +2

[RES: 0(8) / [0][][][][][][][] ] +0

[Hidden: [CON: 4->8][MOV: 4->6][SKILL: Axe User][EXP: 0/100][WEA: Axe: D -> D]]

[Equip: Wooden Club][Wooden Club (Crude): Might +1, Hit +68, Crit +2, Weight=6.5, Durability: 4/25]

[Absorption: 30 EXP]

His only comment on Goon's evolution was a big 'Wow.' Goon's level has a maximum level of forty, strength and defense at ten points, the speed stat is at six points, the small body frame becomes a buffed hobgoblin, the weapon mastery did not increase a rank, and Goon finally has a skill. Overall, he was quite satisfied to see that Goon was much stronger than he had expected. Not only that, he discovered something new as well. Where and when a goblin evolves matters a lot as well.

For example, Big Goon becomes a hobgoblin at level sixteen and the original limit of twenty only increases by sixteen levels from a max level of twenty to a max level of thirty-six. Meanwhile,

Goon evolves at level twenty but has a level limit of forty. This means that the higher possible level a monster can gain before being able to evolve. The stronger a monster can become. Goon was a prime example. He reckons that if Goon were to fight against the first hobgoblin that he saw. Goon would no doubt be able to overcome the hobgoblin after a few bouts. Not only that but even though Goon did not have a weapon advantage at all. Right now, all he could say was that no goblins, hobgoblins, or wolves would become a threat to his life at all.

He was quite happy at the moment and happily woke Mike up for the night's watch so he could get a wink of sleep. His back is laid perfectly comfortably on the side of Dork and he just about closes his eyes to go into a good wonderland's dream. However, his happiness did not last. He hears the clopping of horseshoes hitting on the ground.