Ashes of Gods: Return of the Blade Emperor - 21 Crawling To The Den

On the front of the chest, there was a button. Shesmu clicked it, and after four seconds of mechanical clicking, the chest opened. A brown light shone from inside the chest and a notification popped up for Shesmu.

With his hands, Shesmu signaled for his teammate to go up. He decided that it’s better to reach the surface first and catch their breath before checking the notification.

With his signal, the trio swam up to the surface of the lake.

“Bwah, I was about to suffocate,” exclaimed Leo. Both him and Ryan erratically breathed in and out.

After waiting for them to catch their breath, Shesmu looked at Ryan and Leo before saying, “Ok, I got it.”

As if these words were a magical spell, the duo immediately became energetic again.

“There better be some cool gear there, the devs are gonna hear it from me otherwise!”

Leo nodded at Ryan’s declaration, and Shesmu just laughed before he checked his notifications.

[Wood Chest Tier 1 Opened

The rewards have been sent to your inventory.]

Shesmu opened his inventory only to find three new items. There was one sword, ten potions, and ten pills. Shesmu took out these items from his inventory one by one so as to show them to his teammates. He then Inspected them.

[Iron Sword

Rarity: Iron

Required Level: 1

Weapon Level: 1

Attack: 40]

[Regenerative Health Potion

Increases Health Point regeneration by 5 Hp/sec for one minute.]

[Regenerative Energy Pills

Increase Energy regeneration by 5 Energy/sec for one minute.]

“Weapon level?” asked Leo confused. He then continued, “Do weapons level up in this game?”

Ryan was also frowning in confusion when he answered, “I guess? But look at those potions, aren’t they broken? If we just hit and run while using them, we will never die.”

“I’m not sure about the weapon that level up and how that works, but I think we should decide on the distribution first, right?” suggested Shesmu.

Ryan thought for a second then said, “Well, Leo is the tank for now, so he should get 4 potions, while we get 3 each. Since you’re the most proficient with the sword here, so you should take it, and I take 4 pills while you split the rest. Is that good?”

“I think that’s fair. Shesmu has been taking most of the burden until now, so he deserves compensation,” Leo responded.

“Well, if it’s fine with you guys, then I will take the weapon. Hopefully, we find some other treasure chests to equip everyone.”

The distribution of the potions and pills was the same as before with Leo taking four Hp potions and Ryan four energy pills from every chest.

After cleaning the place, Shesmu finally decided to check out what was behind the waterfall. Even though he knew that the goblin den was there, Shesmu deemed it necessary to clear out the area of every treasure chest possible.

Shesmu swam towards the waterfall and looked behind it. He found that even though the entrance of the den was higher than the level of water, they could still reach it by using Dash.

“Hey, guys! I just found something weird!” shouted Shesmu at the top of his lungs to get the attention of the duo.

The duo swam towards him. When they got close to Shesmu, Ryan asked, “What is it? Another treasure?”

“Even better,” Shesmu responded. He then signaled them to come behind the waterfall before pointing towards the den and saying, “Come here and look at what I’ve found, seems like we’ll finally have some fun.”

The trio followed his lead then looked at where his finger pointed at.

“Is that a cave? We should check it out, maybe we’ll find more treasures there!” exclaimed Leo.

“Well, I’d love to too, but how are we supposed to climb that high?” asked Ryan, unwillingness clear in his eyes as he looked at the cave that he deemed impossible to reach.

“Well, who said anything about climbing? We have the Dash skill, so let’s use that,” suggested Shesmu.

As if given a new life, Ryan’s voice became cheerful when he exclaimed, “How could I forget about that! Sorry guys, sometimes my brain just turns off.”

“Haha, don’t worry. It happens,” consoled Leo.

“Well, let’s get going guys. We can’t stay here all night,” said Shesmu.

The duo nodded at Shesmu’s words and in a count of three, they all dashed towards the entrance of the cave. Once their feet touched the ground, a message appeared in front of them.

Ding!

Congratulations on finding the level 5 dungeon: Goblin’s Den!

For being the first party to find the dungeon, you are rewarded with 50 human reputation points!

“Oh a dungeon, lucky!”, exclaimed Leo before continuing, “and these rewards are sweet too!”

“I was expecting to find a treasure here, but for it to be a dungeon, that’s even better!” added Ryan.

Shesmu closed off the notifications before turning and looking at his teammates, “I think that we should probably stay quiet for now. We don’t know where the monsters are and we don’t want to get swarmed from the get-go.”

The duo nodded at Shesmu’s words before Leo responded with a lower voice, “Let’s go, guys, I’m already excited.”

Ryan and Shesmu smiled when hearing Leo’s quiet voice, before chuckling a little bit. This whole scenario left Leo confused, but he didn’t mind and just walked deeper into the cave.

The trio didn’t have to walk for long before finding their first opponent. Barely fifteen seconds in, a group of five goblins ran towards them, dagger in hand.

Each of the goblins was a level 5 one, and with small bodies, they could run one next to the other in this small cave with ease. Shesmu used Inspect on all of them and found that they had 200 Hp. While this number dwarfed his 160 Hp, it didn’t matter to Shesmu. After doing some calculation in his head, Shesmu thought, With my new sword, I can kill one of them in one combo.

“Leo, Ryan, the usual!” Shesmu barked out.

Understanding his meaning, Leo ran towards the goblin group while Ryan hid under the cover of the shadows waiting for the perfect opportunity.

Shesmu followed Leo’s lead and ran towards the goblins. At this point, Leo was already their focus, so Shesmu just singled out the goblin at the left and swung his sword towards him.

A flash of green light emanated and ridiculous numbers appeared above the flabbergasted goblin.

120

240

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