Meanwhile, inside the dungeon.
'I've been in here for a few hours already,' Logan thought, cutting through the leaves carefully. 'It's about time to go back.'
Logan's bag held 17 raw mana cores, harvested from the several F-rank creatures he had slain while following the long underground river.
"This place seems to go on for miles," Logan mumbled, looking around him.
Glancing at his map, he noticed an area with goblins nearby.
"The only creatures I haven't encountered yet," Logan muttered, coming to a stop.
'I came here to train,' he thought, glancing at the map once again. 'These are probably the most difficult F-rank creatures there are.'
'I should go pay them a visit.'
Making his decision, Logan walked deeper into the forest towards the area where goblins were usually spotted.
He moved carefully, trying to be as stealthy as possible.
After walking a mile, Logan spotted something green moving in the distance.
'There they are,' Logan thought, glancing at the group of three goblins.
Before he could move closer, he heard the goblins make low roars before looking in his direction.
"Great," Logan mumbled, channeling mana into his spear.
He knew the goblins had a great sense of smell, but he hadn't expected them to smell the dried-up blood on his clothes from two hundred feet away.
The goblins started shouting as they pointed their crude weapons at Logan.
Logan glanced around him and saw another group of three goblins approaching his right side, likely having been attracted by the shouting.
Without hesitation, he charged at the initial group of goblins in front of him.
Logan activated his Flaming Body technique, boosting his strength and speed greatly as he advanced towards the group.
The three goblins immediately turned around and split up, running away while attracting attention by shouting.
Logan quickly caught up to one of them and stuck his glaive straight through his chest, causing the goblin to go up in flames as it fell to the ground.
'I'll retreat for now,' he thought. 'There's not much I can learn when they run away like this.'
Logan wanted to retreat and figure out how large the goblin group had become.
'While I do want to train myself by fighting a group of them, I don't want to be swarmed by thirty goblins.'
In his eyes, that wasn't training but a reckless decision.
'But how can I properly check the size of their group?'
A spark of inspiration flickered in his eyes as he stared at the goblin's corpse. He picked up the body and sliced small wounds into it before retreating toward the river.
'They'll definitely smell this,' he thought, smiling as he looked at the drops of blood trailing behind him.
Walking for half a mile, Logan arrived at a somewhat open area and dropped the goblin's corpse.
'Now to mask my own smell,' he thought, picking up some mud and smearing it all over his body.
From a safe distance, Logan watched and waited for the goblins to pick up the scent.
After 10 minutes, Logan could hear some rustling in the distance.
A lone goblin walked through the bushes and approached the goblin's corpse hesitantly.
'A scout,' Logan thought, observing.
Seeing nothing suspicious, the scout let out a harsh growl.
Not even a minute later, a large group of fifteen goblins walked through the bushes and approached the corpse.
Logan narrowed his eyes.
'Fifteen of them,' Logan thought, glaring through some leaves. 'Manageable.'
The goblins surrounded the body, sniffing and snarling as they poked it with their crude spears and blades. One of them, larger, with scraps of scavenged armor, stepped forward and kicked the corpse with a grunt.
'A leader?' Logan guessed, narrowing his eyes even further. The creature barked something in its language, causing a few others to fan out in different directions.
'They're more intelligent than I thought… they're checking for an ambush.'
Logan quickly took out a mana restoration pill and swallowed it, watching one goblin approach him.
The moment the goblin reached him, Logan swung his glaive up, sending the creature's head flying in an instant as he cut through its neck.
The goblins hadn't noticed a thing when Logan activated his Flaming Body and charged toward them.
By the time the nearest goblin turned around, Logan had already planted his glaive inside its stomach.
Finally realizing what was going on, the other goblins started to screech as they moved towards him.
'Too late,' he thought, spinning around his glaive towards two more unsuspecting goblins.
His glaive cut through the two goblins like butter, slashing their bodies in half.
Glancing around him, Logan noticed that the remaining goblins had surrounded him while their leader stood at the back and watched.
"I'm surrounded."
He grinned.
"Perfect."
Several goblins moved in at once, trying to overwhelm Logan with their spears.
Logan twisted his body around an incoming spear and cut the arm that was holding it, causing the goblin to screech out in pain as it fell back.
He had no time to think, with three more spears shooting towards his back.
Leaping into the air, he dodged them and landed hard, stomping down on their shafts to pin them to the ground.
He swung his glaive at the goblins that had yet to let go of their weapons. His blade cracked bone and tore through skulls in a single sweep.
Suddenly, his instincts warned him.
'Above,' he thought, raising his glaive.
Two goblins had climbed into nearby trees and jumped down, their crude swords clattering loudly as they landed on Logan's glaive.
'I need to be faster,' Logan thought, feeling the remaining four goblins rush towards him with their spears.
Using all the strength in his right arm, Logan flung the goblins away with a sweep of his glaive's shaft.
Subconsciously, he'd slowly pushed mana into his brain, accelerating his reaction speed, which allowed him to use the first stage of the Flaming Body to its fullest.
Logan spun around, one of the goblin's blades scratching his armor before he slashed through them one by one.
Turning around again, Logan found that the two goblins he'd thrown away had fled.
'Oh,' he thought, glancing at the spot where their leader had been standing. 'Seems like he ran away too.'
Logan glanced at his hand and smiled. 'Finally.'
He realized he had completed the first stage of the Flaming Body technique as he stopped supplying mana to it.
The smell of blood hit his nose, causing him to frown in disgust.
'Let's get out of here,' he thought, walking towards the dungeon's exit.