Trial Nest

With that thought, he did not hesitate and walked toward the trial entrance.

The farther he went, the more distinct the aura emanating from the entrance became.

Su Mu looked up ahead. A massive screen of light was set beside the school gate, dark gray ripples constantly surging across its surface like water ruffled by the wind.

Beyond the screen of light was the entrance to the trial nest.

Several thick metal pillars stood on either side of the screen, with countless fine blue lines of light extending from them and weaving into a net that enveloped the entire entrance.

It was a "forced ejection" device specially installed by the school, capable of forcibly teleporting trial participants out of the nest when the dungeon core was about to be destroyed.

Su Mu walked up to the screen of light, his nostrils twitching slightly.

A faint putrid stench seeped out from within it.

The smell was hard to describe, like rotting meat mixed with damp earth, laced with a bloody tang reminiscent of rust.

It was not strong, but enough to make one wrinkle one's nose.

He peered through the screen.

Beyond it was a space shrouded in gray-black fog.

He could faintly make out broken wooden fences and animal-hide tents scattered haphazardly across the ground, like the ruins of some primitive tribe. Farther away, something dark seemed to hang from several crooked wooden stakes, swaying slightly in the fog.

Su Mu narrowed his eyes.

They were hanging chunks of meat, so rotten their original shapes were unrecognizable. Maggots crawled all over them, and dark red liquid occasionally dripped from the meat, landing in the dirt below with a faint sound.

Su Mu did not gag.

He had seen worse in textbooks.

The school's trial nest had been specially designed. Although it resembled a wild goblin nest on the outside, its internal rules had been artificially modified.

Monster strength, waves, and spawn mechanics all followed clear standards. The smell was simulated, and the hanging meat was merely a replica, material used to construct the scene. There was no real danger from it.

Real nests in the wild were far more horrifying.

What hung from those wooden stakes were often human corpses.

Some were still alive, captured by goblins as reserve food, their limbs chopped off before they were hung in a well-ventilated place and coated with a special secretion from the monsters to keep their flesh from rotting too quickly.

That was true hell.

Su Mu looked away and walked up to the screen of light.

A translucent, pale blue panel appeared before him.

[Trial nest: Goblin Camp]

[Difficulty selection: normal / hard / nightmare]

[Currently available: normal]

[Clear normal to unlock: hard]

The other two options were grayed out, covered in dark chain patterns and clearly locked.

Without hesitation, Su Mu reached out and pressed "normal."

Hum.

A white light poured out of the screen and enveloped him.

The sensation of weightlessness lasted only an instant.

When he could see his surroundings clearly again, he was standing in his own dungeon space.

Flower-Fruit Mountain and Lion Camel Ridge stood side by side beneath a gray sky.

In the clearing at the foot of Lion Camel Ridge, a dark red fissure was slowly tearing open. Amid low growls and a dense patter of footsteps, ten small, hunched figures emerged from it.

Goblins.

Ten in all.

Each stood only about a meter tall, with gray-green skin covered in bumps and wrinkles. Uneven yellow teeth showed in their gaping mouths.

They wore tattered leather armor and carried rusty short blades and wooden clubs, their cloudy eyes gleaming with ferocity.

Level one.

And they had all spawned at once, rather than appearing in batches.

Su Mu watched it all from the dungeon's god's-eye view.

When he designed the dungeon, he had set no traps or delaying mechanisms.

Lion Camel Ridge did have a geographical advantage, but if he really let the goblins slowly climb up from the foot of the mountain, he would only be wasting his own time.

Unless there were cards with harsh terrain or weather, the monsters' stamina expenditure had a nearly negligible effect on their combat power, so there was little point in delaying them with terrain.

So he had simply placed the battle area at the entrance to Lion Camel Ridge.

The fissure from which the goblins emerged faced the clearing at the foot of Lion Camel Ridge.

From the dungeon's god's-eye view, Su Mu glanced down, and Appraisal naturally appeared.

[Monster appraisal]

[Name: goblin]

[Rank: normal]

[Level: 1]

[HP: 135/135]

[Attack: 10]

[Defense: 3]

[Speed: 9]

[Combat index: 91]

[Skill: Crude Weapon Mastery]

[Note: Basic monster in a normal trial dungeon. The lowest-ranking troop type in a goblin nest. Lives in groups and uses crude short blades and wooden clubs. Weak individually, but numerous.]

Su Mu's gaze lingered on "combat index: 91" for a moment.

A level-one normal goblin, with its basic template modified by its goblin attributes, had 135 HP, 10 attack, 3 defense, 9 speed, and a combat index of about 91. Ten of them attacking at once would be a bit of trouble for an ordinary awakened one; against Little Drill Wind, though, they were no different from ten chickens waiting to be slaughtered.

Little Drill Wind stood beside the stone monument marked "Lion Camel Ridge," only a few dozen meters from the fissure.

As soon as the monsters appeared, he was the first thing they faced.

Su Mu gave no orders.

At his current level and with his current dungeon permissions, once monsters entered the dungeon, he had no items he could use and no rules he could manipulate. All he could do was watch.

Of course, he did not need to do anything, either.

The instant the ten goblins emerged from the fissure, Little Drill Wind moved.

He had been leaning lazily against the stone monument, toying with his short blade. Suddenly, as if he had caught a scent, his blue-black nostrils twitched slightly.

The next second, a dark cyan glow visible to the naked eye poured out of him.

Su Mu's eyelid twitched.

This was a passive skill.

Lion Camel Ridge Glory.

Within the bounds of Lion Camel Ridge, he could exert 150% of his own strength.

Su Mu looked at Little Drill Wind's attribute panel again. His base attack, defense, and speed had all changed: attack had risen from 840 to 1,260, defense from 392 to 588, and speed from 770 to 1,155. Every attribute had increased to one and a half times its original value, and the numbers on the panel were already comparable to those of some powerful S-rank cards.

As ridiculous as expected, Su Mu marveled inwardly.

The next moment, Little Drill Wind's figure vanished.

No, he had not vanished. He was simply too fast.

A gray blur streaked through the air. Before Su Mu could make out his movements, he had already charged into the goblins. The sound of his short blade leaving its sheath rang out almost at the same time as the whistle of the air. A cold glint flashed, and the lead goblin's head flew straight off, gray-green blood spraying across the face of the companion beside it.

Immediately afterward, Little Drill Wind darted left and right through the goblins, his short blade flashing like lightning.

He used no skills.

He did not even need to activate Demonic Qi Sensing. Relying purely on speed and strength, every strike landed precisely on a goblin's neck or heart.

Wherever the blade flashed, goblins fell like stalks of wheat cut down.

From beginning to end, the slaughter took less than ten seconds.

The last goblin still had its wooden club raised when the short blade pierced its chest, pinning its entire body to the ground. It twitched twice, then stopped moving.

All ten level-one goblins were wiped out.

Su Mu looked at the corpses strewn across the ground and clicked his tongue inwardly.

Although he had long known that, with Little Drill Wind's attributes, defeating level-one goblins would be a crushing victory, seeing that efficiency with his own eyes still left him somewhat stunned.

An ordinary D-rank or C-rank card would have needed a minute or two to deal with ten monsters, at the very least. Little Drill Wind had taken less than ten seconds.

At the same time, a warm current of power surged from the depths of the dungeon and merged into his soul space.

[Level increased: level 1 → level 2]

[Soul Power: 0 → 10]