The cave environment was not only the goblins' home turf; the darkness also gave Lynn the perfect opportunity to slip around the battlefield and harvest lives at will.
With his Stealth skill active, the darkness became Lynn's best cloak of invisibility. The Goblin Minions couldn't track his movements in the dark at all.
In just over ten seconds, even without the aid of his skills, Lynn still managed to claim the lives of several Goblin Minions with his spear.
The constant notifications of Talent Points being credited from his monster manual only fueled Lynn's desire to harvest more.
Less than two or three minutes into the battle, he had already accumulated over ten Talent Points in his manual.
The others in the cave could do little more than defend themselves passively, allowing Lynn to unceremoniously claim almost all the goblin kills for himself, converting them into talent potential.
Soon, the goblins realized that their companions were rapidly thinning out.
The accumulated Talent Points in his manual had already exceeded twenty. This time, Lynn did not hesitate and directly activated the next tier of talent.
Between the two branches of 【Goblin Warrior】 and 【Goblin Apprentice】, Lynn decided to push his attribute advantages to their absolute limits.
He chose to activate the 【Goblin Apprentice】 talent.
Currently, his highest attributes were still Intelligence and Perception.
After activating the new talent, the log of the 《Monster Identification Manual》 updated first—
“New Star Calendar Year 442. Lynn has lit up a talent, unlocking a new entry in the monster manual—Goblin Apprentice. Current unlocked entries: 4.”
“Note: When five monster entries are unlocked, the first Rune reward will be granted.”
Next were the stat boosts gained from lighting up the talent.
【Goblin Apprentice: Random Spell Lv.1, Intelligence +1, Perception +1】
The increase in his Perception attribute would help Lynn make better use of his Stealth ability.
And more importantly, this talent would allow Lynn to awaken a spell.
While the Goblin Warrior's 【Swift Escape】 certainly sounded good and fit Lynn's combat style well,
the temptation of magic was something Lynn simply could not refuse.
Besides, Lynn's Intelligence attribute was already as high as 8 points. The attribute bonus from "Goblin Apprentice" could increase his Intelligence by another point, which was incredibly precious.
Raising a stat by one point from a base of 5 was a completely different concept than raising it from a base of 8.
If it were an ordinary person with only 5 points of Intelligence, this talent's bonus would likely have been enough to raise their Intelligence by two points.
As the twenty Talent Points were invested, the eyes of the goblin spellcaster on the talent tree began to glow.
A stream of cool, refreshing energy surged from the pages, starting from his brain and spreading throughout his entire body.
An unprecedented feeling of clarity arose, as if a dense brain fog had been swept away and cleared.
Although there wasn't much of a physical change this time, Lynn felt his vision improve by another notch. More importantly, it was the change in his mind.
He felt as though something new had been added to his mind, allowing him to perceive the mana drifting through the air.
Now, he too was a spellcaster.
Before Lynn could savor the feeling of mana,
a bright white light flared up from among the adventurers.
It was Betty. A brilliant light erupted from her hand, illuminating the entire cave as bright as day.
Betty, who looked like a rogue, was actually casting a spell!
She was a spellcaster too!
Before Lynn could even catch his breath after regaining his vision, he found two goblins pouncing at him simultaneously from the front and back.
But to Lynn's eyes, everything seemed to slow down several times over.
Lynn could now easily track every single movement of the goblins.
One of the goblins had shifting eyes and weak movements—clearly a feint.
Lynn couldn't help but marvel at this wonderful effect.
The increase in his Intelligence attribute had accelerated his thoughts, achieving a sort of bullet-time effect to some degree.
This beautifully made up for Lynn's shortcomings in weapon proficiency.
Relying on the superior innate attributes of a human, Lynn thrust his spear upward, easily disarming one of the goblins and sending its weapon flying to lodge into the cave wall.
The goblin in front had already closed in, but Lynn simply tilted his body slightly, dodging the attack with minimal movement.
At the same time, the two goblins and Lynn were lined up in a straight line.
Gripping his spear with both hands, Lynn thrust forward.
With a squelching sound of metal tearing through flesh, the bodies of the two goblins hung limply from his spear.
As expected, stacking his dominant attributes was the right move.
The effects of a high Intelligence stat far exceeded having two or three points scattered across different physical attributes.
Having dealt with the two goblins that had pounced on him, Lynn now felt a wave of exhaustion.
The lactic acid building up in his muscles was starting to take its toll, leaving him with a dull ache.
This was probably the only drawback of choosing "Goblin Apprentice."
If he had chosen Goblin Warrior, the physical stat increases would have restored his condition in the process.
In the long run, choosing Goblin Apprentice was definitely more beneficial, but given the current situation, Goblin Warrior would have been a solid choice as well.
However, Lynn's fatigue no longer had any impact on the battle.
By now, the adventurers had also made progress.
Although they had been briefly suppressed by three Strong Goblins, no matter how robust a goblin was, it was no match for fully grown human adventurers.
What's more, there was Betty, a spellcaster, among these adventurers.
Betty pulled a scroll from her waist and tore it open.
Seeing this, Hal the ranger closed his eyes, looking as though his heart was aching for the cost.
But with his hand slashed and his combat capability lost, he naturally couldn't interfere with Betty's actions.
Visible mana rippled out from the scroll, exploding in a circular shockwave with Betty at the center.
The charging Strong Goblins were blown away by the powerful impact, slamming heavily against the stone walls and collapsing to the ground, unable to move.
Unfortunately, Lynn wasn't given the chance to steal the kills.
While Lynn had been busy dealing with the Goblin Minions, Solon the knight had already gotten back up, stepping forward to finish off the three Strong Goblins with a single sword strike each.
Missing out on six Talent Points didn't bother Lynn too much; after all, his gains from this trip were already substantial.
Besides, there was still one more opportunity to score some Talent Points!
Lynn's gaze locked onto the Goblin Warrior currently locked in a fierce battle with the monk, a trace of burning desire slipping into his eyes.
A Goblin Warrior would grant ten Talent Points upon death, equivalent to ten whole Goblin Minions.
“Gan, I'm coming to help you!”
While Lynn was still greedily eyeing the target, Solon the knight had already rushed over, preparing to assist the monk in double-teaming the Goblin Warrior.
“Roar—”
With its subordinates completely wiped out and left with no support, the Goblin Warrior let out a furious roar, shaking loose a shower of dust from the cave walls.
But it was already at the end of its rope.
Seeing his cooked duck about to fly away, Lynn felt a rare surge of anxiety.
But his stamina was completely depleted. He couldn't use any skills and had no way of inserting himself into the fray.
No, wait...
A skill... a skill...
Lynn's eyes lit up.
The random spell rewarded by his talent!
The mana in the air instantly gathered in front of Lynn.
A cyan missile of light gradually took shape, outlined by the raw mana.
Magic Missile!
This was the spell Lynn had learned after activating the mutated goblin talent.
As the glow of the missile grew brighter and brighter, everyone's eyes in the cave converged on Lynn.
Even Betty couldn't help but look on in surprise.
This villager was actually a spellcaster too?!
Soon, guided by Lynn's gestures, the mana in his body surged out. The Magic Missile shot forward, arriving in front of the Goblin Warrior in the blink of an eye.
The Goblin Warrior looked down, having already noticed the missile of light flying toward it, but it was already too late to dodge.
Rate on N.U.
