Jason took a few deep breathes to inhale some air as he was too tensed up during his close combat fight with the 10+ goblins.
A single mistake could have ended his life and the goblins numeral advantage was extremely annoying.
Not even normal beasts would form such big groups except a few herd beasts, but that was not as annoying as goblin groups as they worked together.
Jason stored all Goblins and inspected some of their weapons only for him to figured out that most forged weapons seemed to be from hunters, while only a few were crudely forged from somebody else.
What astonished Jason however was that the runes he found on the stone weapons were either rare or not listed in the books provided by the Artisan-tower.
If these were unknown runes, Jason could make a huge fortune by selling them.
But rather than that, it looked like they were probably only basic weapon strengthening runes, like sharpening, toughness, and so on with a few adjustments.
Still! Jason was sure that not many runemasters knew these runes and maybe selling them could bring him some credits.
Furthermore, he would save a few for himself to research them because Jason doubted that Goblins used rare materials to inscribe these runes.
Maybe it was not required to use liquefied mana stones or higher ranked beast cores to inscribe runes!
After storing everything away, Jason was sure that he could make a huge fortune by hunting Goblins, either by handing in missions for lace points or by selling their weapons.
The only small problem was that some of Jason′s arrows couldn′t be found or broke when they penetrated the goblin's bones.
Jason had only around 100 arrows, after purchasing another batch a few weeks ago and he had never thought that he would end up with a shortage of arrows so soon.
He had enough throwing knives and didn′t really bother the lost ones but he still picked up the ones he found as throwing away credits was extremely wasteful.
Not wasting any time searching for the lost knives and arrows, Jason continued his hunt for Goblins.
*
Only half an hour passed until he found the next large group of Goblins and it wondered Jason, that he could barely see any other beasts, which was a good and bad sign at the same time.
It seemed like the beasts were either hiding, already killed, or captured by Goblins which would be relatively bad, considering the fairy tales about Goblin-riders.
The only good point for Jason was that he didn't have to be that careful about approaching beasts than before, which didn't mean he would lower his guard in any way.
Scanning through the next group of Goblins, Jason noted that the group was slightly smaller than the one before while two larger mage apprentices could be identified among the group of hideous green beasts.
Jason took out his bow once again.
Pulling back the bowstring with an arrow nocked on it, he shot at the slightly larger Goblin-mage apprentice among the two of them.
To play everything safe, Jason decided to shoot all three arrows at a single target, because he noticed weird mana fluctuations around the goblin mage apprentices through his mana eyes.
It was not only that both Goblin mage apprentices reached the intermediate awakened rank, while one seemed larger, the mana fluctuations he perceived enveloped something.
A bad premonition was slowly building up inside his mind, when the arrows smoothly left the bowstring.
The arrows flew in a perfect curve at the goblin group that didn′t detect anything at all when the arrows pierce into the larger goblin mage apprentice….or that was what Jason hoped for.
Right before the arrows pierced into its target to kill it, a thick bright rune appeared in front of the arrow, illuminated the surrounding lightly deflecting the first arrow easily.
Once the first arrow was deflected, Jason saw that the fluctuations he saw weakened while the second arrow caused the manifested rune to lose its luster completely.
The last arrow ripped the rune apart and pierced into the goblin mage apprentice.
The last arrow was the only one that hit the target and ripping apart the manifested rune, caused it to change its trajectory slightly.
As such the arrow pierced into the large goblins abdomen, injuring it seriously, instead of killing it instantly with a hit into the head.
It cried out in pain and the other goblin mage apprentice immediately took action.
Looking around, while mana particles swirled around it.
Due to the more superior intelligence of goblin mage apprentices compared to normal goblins, it detected Jason almost immediately, when another volley of arrows entered its view.
When Jason saw the manifested rune, he immediately knew that his first attack wouldn′t kill the first goblin mage apprentice.
As such he shot another volley of arrows at the same target to finish it off, before nocking another arrow on the bowstring.
There were close to 20 goblins slightly more than 100 meters away from him and he was alone as Scorpio was too weak in order to support him.
The first lethal target was killed and the only possible threat to him was the remaining goblin mage apprentice, as it would be able to use mana to attack with it.
Jason only fired single arrows in fast succession now as his priority were the four archers.
Seeing a single human attacking them. The remaining goblin mage apprentice ordered his troupe to attack him.
His rapid firing speed increased even more, as the protection rune of the goblin mage apprentice that was still alive couldn′t be immediately destroyed.
With him being uncovered it was also more important to kill as many opponents as possible, which amplified his archery skill thanks to the pressure.
Before the goblins could begin their counteroffensive, Jason already killed the goblin archers, as a fireball came flying all the way towards him.
Its speed was much slower than arrows but the explosiveness upon hitting a target would be great as Jason decided to abandon his current position, storing away his bow in order to make a smooth roll.
The fireball didn′t hit its target and exploded without hurting anyone, except the plants in a small radius.
Jason took out the throwing knives and charged at the goblin soldiers that were also rushing at him with wrath gleaming in their eyes.
Right when the goblin mage apprentice wanted to shoot another fireball, it noticed that Jason was already among its brethren and it was forced to stop chanting its spell.
But then a hideous smile appeared on its face as it saw Jason massacring its brethren when began to summon another fire-ball
Jason thought that the goblin mage apprentice would not kill its brethren with a fireball and was overjoyed when he saw it canceling the spell.
But only a few seconds later, he saw through his mana eyes that the goblin mage apprentice was gathering mana around it once again, which caused him to frown.
From a corner of his eyes, Jason could see a red flame appearing within the goblin mage apprentice's hand, forming into a ball that was double the size as before.
When he noticed the goblin throwing the fireball, he immediately exerted the Weightless Steps movement technique to the limit as he rushed out of the densely packed area with the ten goblin soldier following his gaze with wrath and bloodlust in their eyes.
They wanted to follow him when a fireball hit the center of their group, which wiped out their life without much difficulty, as the reeking smell of burned flesh, tormented his nostrils.
Jason felt the fireball's explosiveness and he was astonished that an intermediate goblin mage apprentice was able to form such a strong fireball.
But looking at it, he noticed its exhaustion.
Even the fluctuating mana around the area, where the mysterious protection rune seems to be placed was weaker than before and he estimated that the goblin mage apprentice absorbed some of the mana around this area.
There were still three Goblin soldiers hanging on the life′s thread when Jason finished them off without regarding their pained cries.
He was disgusted about the goblin′s cruelty amongst each other..killing its own brethren to assassinate a single human? Was it worth the sacrifices?
Jason didn't think so but for Goblins it could be and he didn't want to think about this anymore as he approached the last goblin that was alive.
The mage apprentice.
It looked like the protection rune was still able to do something and Jason wondered if it would only deflect projectiles or not.
However seeing that the goblin mage apprentice was without any combat strength left, Jason wasn′t all that scared about a counterattack.
When he was only two meters apart from it, the goblin tried to attack him, but it was useless as Jason used throwing knives to pierce its joints, crippling it and destroying its last resistance.
Apparently, the protection rune was engraved on a necklace and he had never seen the rune at all.
However, the rune was only able to deflect projectiles and Jason killed the last goblin before picking up his spoils.
Injecting mana into the almost completely depleted rune, it began to shine more vibrant and Jason′s whole stored amount of mana was used up.
He estimated that the fully empowered rune should be able to block projectiles at the intermediate-awakened rank to prevent sniper or affinity-based enemies to assassinate them.
Being able to inscribe various types of runes meant that the goblin runemaster′s knowledge was vast, even if the runes were low based ones, the material used for all of them seemed to be extremely cheap.