It was only for a second.

  Ray came to as a feverish flow of energy was injected into his mind. He suddenly got up, remembering his situation. There were probably still more monsters out there, Ray hoped that he wasn’t surrounded. He deduced that he must have only lost consciousness for a split second.

  His eyes adjusted to the powerful lights of the supercar shining near his spot.

  It worked! Ray was exalted.

  It seemed like he was fine. His shoes had goblin juices and his clothes were torn up but for the most part, he felt clean. Everything felt normal as his eyes scanned his surroundings, not caring about the blood on his clothes. His fears had also disappeared along with his urge to kill.

  Nothing moved. It seemed like the other goblins were either dead, half-dead, or retreating. Ray opened up his interface mentally once more to check his status.

  Below the status came a new message.

  He couldn’t help but grin. It seemed like the system had expanded to include three new options. And the message attached also felt very welcoming.

  I’ll have to take a look after this, Ray thought to himself. There was a warm feeling surging in his chest from the transformation. There’s a lot to unpack here.

  It felt great. His energy was overflowing and he still had stat points to distribute. Ray started wondering about how much stronger he would get in the coming days. It was like a dream come true. Though, something was bothering him in the back of his mind.

  It felt like he needed to do something. But Ray couldn’t quite put his finger on it. The thought eluded him, just like Laura had earlier.

  “Dumb bitch,” Ray found himself saying. He couldn’t help himself. It was mildly infuriating. They had left him to fend for himself back there, with no explanation whatsoever. Weren’t they all on the same side here?

  It’s humans versus monsters out here, Ray thought to himself. The whole situation just puzzled him. When I was fighting the monsters, they definitely should have helped me out. That man was stronger than me.

  Ray saw movement to his left. Or rather, he sensed it. He could feel a difference in the way he perceived his environment now. There were more enemies to fight.

  He casually turned his head over to that side, preparing to give chase. Ray could feel their weakness in the air as he tensed his muscles. The powerful feeling of flexing was intoxicating to his mind. All Ray could focus on was the fact that there was EXP to be gained.

  Ray pumped his legs and arms, quickly dashing from his spot towards the brush. He would catch the hooded goblin off guard and isolate it to win the fight. Though he had been hasty with his decision, Ray never lost sight of the fight in his mind.

  He was razor-focused and calm.

  A snarl came from the brush as it realized Ray had spotted it. It tried to get away to no avail. As Ray closed the gap, he saw the sickly green skin of the goblin flash as it performed some sort of special skill. Then, it was gone.

  Ray stopped for a split second, reorienting himself. He needed to know what it just did.

  He looked around at his surroundings, scanning every inch of ground incredibly fast with his eyes. They had fully adjusted to the semi-darkness caused by the high-beams from the supercar.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  It was easy to spot what the goblin had done. The monster was fleeing from the place, running away from Ray. It had evidently performed a movement skill to displace its location a few feet away instantaneously.

  Ray chased it down and sent it tumbling with a kick. He saw it roll uncontrollably away from him and followed up with another, sending it into a nearby tree. It was incredibly easy and satisfying, feeling the weight of the small body against his leg.

  He finished it off with ease. Its displacement ability couldn’t match up to his newfound abilities and its strength was too weak to handle his kicks. Ray knew that he could win any fight now. He was too strong for the monsters around this area.

  Ray trudged back to the K-50. He opened the door and got in, ignoring the bloodstains discoloring the seats. His high from besting the special goblin was quickly fading.

  Why don’t I just open up the Leaderboards tab and explore? Ray thought. I have nothing better to do, anyway. Wait . . .

  At that thought, something flashed through his mind. Was that statement really true? There was a nagging feeling tugging at him, doing all but whisper into his ear.

  Ray shrugged it off and activated his leaderboards tab. He’d only be a second.

  Ray figured that he was currently ranked one hundred and sixty-two. That much was obvious. But how did rank one through five achieve their classes? They seemed different from his, aside from rank three.

  He quickly scrolled to the next page in the interface.

  It seemed like they had already achieved a higher level than him. Or maybe they had triggered some sort of class upgrade? It was up in the air.

  Ray played a lot of games, but even he could only guess at how the higher ranked people had achieved their classes. Perhaps opening the shop interface would answer his questions. Ray did just that.

  “Shop,” Ray called out, leisurely leaning back in his seat.

  Doesn’t look like much. Let’s see, Ray thought to himself. He tried tapping one of the items, only to find that he was broke. He had no money to buy anything. On second thought, let’s check guilds.

  “Guilds tab please,” Ray said into the air. He had been fiddling with the settings in the car while thinking about the new unlocks. Ray found the language shift and switched it to English. This allowed him to turn on the heater. It was getting chilly, with the way his clothes were destroyed.

  Similar to the class tab, there were more pages listing out guilds. It seemed like all the guilds had a guild leader name. Ray was quite curious. He scrolled down and found that there were only fifteen guilds available currently. What would it be like?

  Should he join a guild?