Essence Enjoys his meal "Nothing tastes good as victory!" Cinder quietly eats with his nose closed "The meat smells so bad. Why do you even want to eat it?" "Stupid guy you are really! We need to get used to eating them, imagine we were fighting a beast and after like an hour and we are all hungry without food. We have to eat the thing we kill!" Cinder rolls his eyes and takes another bite of the Eagle meat. He speaks with a full mouth "Can I be honest, these tastes not so bad, where did you learn to cook this good? where did you learn to cook so good? I'm impressed!" Essence stares Cinder dead in the eyes "You don't know the pain I had to go through. Hours of watching Videos of people cooking raw animals with such inhumane treatment I wanted to puke, like I know it's dead, but still can't they be gentle with it?" "Sounds funny from a guy who wiped out a small goblin village." Essence looked offended but what he was speaking "I ended up going to my mom for tips on cooking, she gave me a long list of spices and some time and count which I forgot, I asked many more which also didn't help. So now i just do on instinct lol." then a system window popped up in front of essence "Passive skill chief's hands has been acquired. Effect: All food make will have 10% better tastes and decrease negative effects by 10%." Essence and Cinder celebrate the new skill Essence just got. But their celebrations were cut short. it seems the sky would fall apart before Essence and Cinder got minute to rest. An arrow shot through barely passing Cinder, Essence got up instantly to look who it was. He also opened his inventory to remove a metal rod but before he could, his hand was pierced with an arrow, the pain jolted Essence's hand away from his inventory. 2 more arrows where shot, Essence dodged the first one, but the second one got stuck in his stomach. It was a deadly area; Essence ran behind a tree followed by Cinder. Blood drips from his body as he gets ready to fight. the First arrow passed through his body poking out from the back. It was in the shape of a hook making them impossible to pull out. Cinder also hit was bleeding, but it didn't hurt him much, A system window popped up for Essence "Status effect adrenaline applied for 180 seconds, after said effect runs out you will be immobilized for 60 minutes." Anger boiled in Essence "OH GREAT! LOOKS LIKE THE PITS OF HELL MISS SOMEONE A LOT, LET ME FULFIL ITS WISHES!" he opens his inventory and pulls out his trusted rod-sword. More arrows rain on Essence as he manages to dodge of them with the help of his rod-sword. He jumps towards these unknown beasts to uncover them. He kicks a branch of the tree he suspected to have the archer. The archer turned out to be a goblin. It was rather weak looking but its eyes looked noticeably sharper. It tried to run away, but essence kicked it down. Yet before Essence could finish the beast, another barrage of arrows wedged themselves in his back. The archer also Escaped from under him. He boiled in rage after seeing his blood and his inability to hunt a lowly goblin, the arrows didn't just make him bleed, it also tainted his Ego. In this enraged state, a system pop up lit up "All Conditions met. Status effect Berserk has been applied, all stats increased by 20%. after the Effect duration is over, A debuff fatigue will be applied for 120 minutes." As the Pop up subsided, Essence's grip tightens around his rod-sword. His muscles bulge out, and his eyes turn red. He dashes with a single leap towards the fleeing Goblins.
We jump to Cinder shooting down goblin archers with his amazing and a little too suspiciously good shooting skill. The Thermo bullet has no gravity to it. If it doesn't burn out, it will practically have an infinite range. Cinder also is quite aware of this; therefore, he is actively trying to make them hold more thermal energy. When he shot down the 5th goblin, a system pop up congratulated him "Congratulations, Skill 'Thermo ball' has levelled up to 2, range has now increased to 50 meters." Cinder thought to himself while walking around the dead goblins "Just distance? So, does that mean I can control its temperature and size? OH WAIT! I did make it really big and maybe super-hot when I shot the dragon with it. But It was really energy consuming. maybe if I just try to increase size or temperature it won't be as much draining." he tried to put his words into action which yielded a bad result. When the temperature is increased so is the size and increasing its size made it cold. felt like a hot blow rather burning bullet. "I wonder, if i made a skill out of the bullets, can i also make a compression skill or something like it?" Before Cinder could Wonder further, a loud thunder made him blunder. Woah, they said Shakespeare was dead. "Could you continue? also, that was bad, If Shakespeare was alive, he would've died hearing that bullsh!t." Cinder's mean words make me wish he was struck by that lightning instead. But it was no lighting, it was the sound of a tree branch, It was a Hobgoblin. It jumped down Infront of Cinder with a stone axe, It spoke no words yet his presence, Strong and domineering spoke its intent, it wished to challenge Cinder. Cider was also not going to run from a fight; He also got ready to throw hands. The hobgoblin brought down the axe with immense power, Cinder barely jumped away. A noticeable creator was left on the ground, Cinder was wide eyed, He pulled out the 2 cricket bats as he stood no chance with his thermo bullets, The Hobgoblin threw its axe at Cinder with was easily dodged, then the beast itself launched towards Cinder trying to grab him which it also failed at as Cinder's suspiciously good Fighting skills with the Cricket bat stopped the Hobgoblin with a smack on its head. While on the ground, it locked eyes on his axe, and so did Cinder. They both lunged for it but the Hobgoblin bigger and faster reached it first. It had a smile over the sense of victory which soon faded when he looked at Cinder Grinning from ear to ear, It was his Cinder's plan all along, while it was busy handling that heavy axe, Cinder stretched like band in air and planted his bats right through the Hobgoblin's head. It died at the moment of impact. Cinder collected its core and planned to use it later. The boring fight and its ease made Cinder overly confident "I can probably solo a whole camp." he said as a arrow shot in his legs making him fall on his face flat. Hate would a fairly nicer word to describe the feeling he felt towards that damn archer goblin. Cinder hid behind a tree looking at his bleeding leg. He was rather annoyed, Then dangerous idea Swept in his mind, He made a gun gesture with both hands and shoot his thermo bullets, not towards the archer, but the tree itself, Cinder wanted to set fire to the trees making the Goblin's unable to attack from the darkness, His idea was dangerous, but his reasoning also made sense, Would just a few trees be a big threat? The trees made burned off while also burning off a few goblins while the rest ran away. Cinder took shelter under a burned tree while the flames grew larger and larger. He slowly understood he fu*ked out big time. He started to run towards the other side calling for Essence, when he did reach Essence though, there was more to fear then the fire.
Cinder saw Essence drenched in blood, some was his while most with goblin blood, He reeked the smell of beasts, what happened to him? before Cinder could think much of it, Essence lunged towards Cinder, He was going to attack Cinder, Cinder acting all cool again made a gun gesture with his hands pointed it towards Essence and Said "Bang!" as a soft but hot thermo bullet flew onto Essence's head, it knocked him unconscious, Cinder put his imaginary guns in his imaginary holsters and lifted Essence in this unconscious state and hung him over the motorbike, He rode off towards the rising sun to East with Essence hanging on the back and a Jungle ablaze. The Goblins also scattered away. The Journey hurt while also healed. 2 friends shaping the world as they venture, survive and hunt. Truly a remarkable Journey! Hope it never ends.