The groups of 5 forced me to change my focus a bit; I couldn't continue spending mana carelessly. I tried to reduce magic to minimal, secondary effects, as a lifesaver; this way I could prolong the time and rounds I could fight more.
Spheres of darkness... stone and water magic to immobilize them... they received some wounds or burns because they made merit attacking from the flanks, protecting each other in a turtle formation. The method was slower...
Every three groups of 5, a stone fell, and I already had six stones in my backpack when I went up to the next level. Instead of waiting for a red pixie, his older brother was waiting for me; he measured at least my height, if not a little taller Than me, as strong as a bodybuilder, armed with a good two-handed axe, and protected with imposing metal armor.
I threw an air blade to test, but he simply dodged it and moved closer. The spear pierced the air in the place where his head should have been, but from a crouched position, the axe whistled and hit my shield, making me retreat a couple of times. Steps. His next attack did not wait, and reversing the trajectory of the axe, he launched a downward slash. I jumped into a crevice to my right and reappeared behind the creature, but before I could get close, it turned around, giving a frontal kick to the shield and sending me rolling down the ground. The room. It was pure brute force, or so I thought...
Attentive to the axe, I began to feint to get closer, but horizontal sweeps of his ax prevented me from reaching a good distance even for my spear. In one of them, when I thought I already had it, the bastard spat a stream of liquid at me. It caught fire when it came into contact with the air. To prevent my new hair (remember that I was originally bald) from burning up, I had to throw myself into the air. Floor...
I could feel his victorious smile as he raised the axe…
"You don't play with my hair, you idiot!!!" A lightning strike hit him in the chest, throwing him against the wall... It smelled like a fried pig in the living room...
This guy dropped three stones, and almost two liters of flammable liquid, in addition to the spectacular axe...
If I had left the test here, I wouldn't have made a bad profit, 8 more stones than I needed... But I, a cheater, repeat ad nauseam...
The next levels also had a large goblin, some with swords, others with a shield and flail. I had learned my lesson... I was not a good combatant... I would have reflexes, and I would have more strength than before, but to consider myself a warrior, I lacked a lot... That was if I could throw powerful magic at them without rest.
By the time they started going out in groups, I had to start meditating between rounds to recover a little... groups of two... groups of three...
There was a particularly problematic group of four who dodged my magic using one of their companions as a meat shield... it's a shame they didn't notice the muddy ground... and how it solidified, leaving them pinned... One managed to free himself in time after receiving a spear in the eye...
"Congratulations to the player for achieving the advanced-level precise spear combat skill. Accurate spear*advanced range*Combat*1/25000. The spear's accuracy stacks 50% of the critical hit chance and doubles damage per hit.
I continued climbing the tower; making entrances with two lightning bolts in front was spectacular, plus it made things a lot easier with the first group of five... I only killed one of them and left another incapacitated; there were still three left... I dodged the fire that they spat at me, jumping into a rift while it enveloped them in darkness, I appeared on the ceiling levitating, a blade finished off the wounded man, and I managed to hit one of them who was not expecting an attack from above. Being in the middle of the darkness, I didn't give them a chance to recover. While a water bullet passed through the injured man's eye, I canceled my darkness, reappearing behind the other two. A laser cut the leg of one while the other was tangled in a whirlpool....
Finishing off the lame man was not complicated...
I smiled, and impaled the red goblin pinned down by the tornado.
Although I took my time to meditate and recover, I managed to get rid of several groups of 5 until I reached a room where the stairs leading up were different... they were majestic and ornate, and there were tapestries on the walls... a boss?
The bad thing about an immersive reality game that was intended to be realistic was the lack of a soundtrack. It would have been very epic to climb those stairs, with the introduction of good music, to reach that throne room right at the moment of the crescendo…
But no, I arrived in silence to see a monster very different from the red goblins... It was at least three meters tall, and weighed more than 250 kilos; if not more, it had horns on its head that protruded in several places. Directions, and two pairs of bat-like wings on his back; the skin was red but scaly and he had reptilian eyes. Clearly, this son of a bitch was not a goblin...
The combat began in a confusing way. While I jumped through a rift, he jumped through another, and he threw a column of fire at point-blank range where I was supposed to be, while I did the same with a lightning strike that in My head thought it would be point-blank...
I think we both thought the same thing: "Can he use space magic?"... while he advanced towards me, closing the distance of more than 40 meters at an incredible speed, I felt like an ant advancing beside him. … I began to throw air blades at him, but he jumped and dodged between them as if they were obvious... I enveloped him in a dome of darkness, hoping to detect him with my mana senses, but before I could attack him, he had already jumped through a rift, appearing at my side and conjuring a ring of fire.
The impact hit me squarely, throwing me against the wall. I broke several ribs and suffered some burns. Luckily, the shield absorbed most of the fire damage by giving me cover...
I reacted instinctively with a psychic wave that left him stunned for two seconds, long enough for my life magic to begin to heal the wounds from the blow and to activate my "bullet time."
"Round two motherfucker"
I jumped into a rift to appear on the roof; he barely managed to avoid my lightning strike, but the same did not happen with the wind blade that hit him in the belly. He was bleeding profusely, and in the time it took me to realize that His wounds were closing and regenerating, a ball of fire shot out of his mouth... I shifted the oxygen in front of me towards him, preventing the flames from growing in my direction but causing them to bounce back in his direction.
With the cover of the fire, I opened a rift on my side and another behind him, but I did not jump through it; he turned his head for a moment to locate me, enough so that this time my lightning strike would hit him in the stomach. …
"Does it hurt, bitch?"
I kept my bullet time active, and while he was affected by the lightning and slowed down in time, a whip made of pure flames appeared in his right hand, curving space towards my direction. At that distance, I could only put up the shield or flee. … I opted for the second, jumping into a rift that took me to the side of the throne.
He followed me with another rift, throwing a column of fire at me at point-blank range. It hit my shield, making me lose my balance and the spear along the way. I responded with a large air blade that he dodged without problems. I took out the sword and got into position, just to receive a lash of fire that left me with a burn from my hip to my shoulder.
I jumped into a rift and appeared in the middle of the room. He began to advance towards me, throwing fireballs non-stop with each of his hands. I raised a vacuum wall of oxygen to neutralize them, only to see him come out of a rift at my Back.
"I got you, bitch!" While I was shouting that to the monster, a water bullet the size of a cannonball that he had been accumulating throughout the fight in the far corner pierced his chest...
He blinked to see before his eye my spear that, with my psychic strength, I had controlled since I dropped it. The spear pierced his head from side to side...
"Congratulations on being the first player to reach level 9 during the tutorial."
The blue button to apply for a contract has just appeared, I have filled out the form, it is going to be a stressful few weeks of waiting. I ask that you put any errors you find in the novel in the comments so I can correct them as we go before the editors start evaluating it. Thank you very much from your author