Starting from Ainz Ooal Gown, simultaneously traveling through time

Chapter 164 Artificial Game Dungeon: Leveling Up by Grinding Monsters

Goblin Cave is located at the foot of a large mountain north of the capital.

From the outside, it looks like an ordinary cave entrance, about two meters high and three meters wide, sealed with a thick iron fence, with a few wooden houses built next to it, making it look like the entrance to a mining area.

But once you step inside, you'll know it's different.

This is a huge man-made cave system, stretching for miles in depth, with a dense network of interconnected passages.

The cave walls are inlaid with crystals enchanted with the [Eternal Light] magic, illuminating the entire cave brightly, not too brightly, but bright enough for people to see their surroundings clearly.

It is home to a huge number of goblins.

These goblins are not the weaklings found in the wild; they are a specially bred breed, each one fierce and formidable.

Of course, this is all inside information; the wooden sign at the entrance that reads "Goblin Cave" doesn't mention any of this.

Minos stood at the cave entrance, looking at the wooden sign with full confidence.

He used to grind goblins in the wild, going from level 1 to level 10 with ease. Goblins are just free experience points, aren't they?

He walked to the wooden hut where the guard was on duty and knocked on the window.

A middle-aged man in uniform poked his head out and looked him up and down.

"What do you do?"

"Let's run the dungeon." Minos blurted out.

The staff member paused for a moment, then asked, "What are you scanning?"

"Oh, oh, it's just—going in to kill goblins." Minos quickly corrected himself.

The staff member nodded and asked routinely, "Do you have the receipt?"

The goblin cave that Lei Lin set up is somewhat modeled after a dungeon in a game, but it is actually more like the Soul Hunting Forest in Douluo Continent.

After all, these goblins are not like those in the game; in reality, they are a non-renewable resource and cannot be slaughtered at will.

Therefore, those who come here to gain experience must not only meet the required strength, but also have relevant credentials. Only those who have both will be allowed in.

Minos had indeed received proof from Leylin before he arrived, and he quickly handed over a metal plaque that Leylin had given him.

The sign was about the size of a palm, entirely silver-white, with some strange symbols engraved on the front and the emblem of the Kingdom of Inberia on the back.

The staff member took the sign, looked at it over and over, and his expression became somewhat subtle.

"The highest level?" He looked up at Minos. "The kind with no time limit?"

Minos nodded: "Yes."

The staff member didn't ask any more questions, returned the sign to him, and pointed to a stone platform next to him with a magic circle engraved on it.

"Step up there and let's test our strength."

Minos stepped onto the stone platform, and a flash of light appeared.

The staff member frowned as he looked at the displayed numbers: "Your physique is rather weak. Is it because your power hasn't fully awakened?"

Minos chuckled: "Yes, not fully awakened yet."

As he walked along, he discovered that even the most ordinary residents here were at level 15 or higher, which was indeed much stronger than him now.

The staff looked at him suspiciously, but didn't say anything more, only reminding him, "Be careful, don't die."

Minos waved his hand and confidently walked into the cave.

Death? How could that be?

Fighting goblins at level 10? Isn't that like an adult fighting a child?

Then he saw the group of things rushing towards him.

What is that thing?

It's called a goblin, but it doesn't look like one at all.

They are a size larger than ordinary goblins, with skin covered in fine scales and vertical pupils, like golden eyes that are like molten gold, just like the eyes of a dragon.

They ran at an absurdly fast speed, looking just like a group of upright-walking lizards.

Minos was stunned.

Is this a goblin?

He instinctively took a step back, wanting to step back and find out what was going on, but the swarm of lizard goblins had already seen him, letting out a sharp hiss and charging towards him.

Can't run away.

Minos gritted his teeth, raised his axe, and charged forward.

Then he got beaten so badly he was left with his teeth knocked out.

If we consider the strength of these goblins according to the game's levels, they are generally level 15 or above, a full five levels higher than him, a level 10 newbie.

Level 5 might not seem like much in a game, but in the real world, it represents a complete dominance in strength and speed.

Minos was beaten black and blue, with several wounds all over his body.

But he discovered something: these goblins, despite their high level, seemed to lack intelligence. Their attack methods were simplistic, they didn't know how to coordinate, and they just charged forward recklessly.

He seized this weakness and began to fight and retreat, using the terrain to maneuver around these guys.

After a great deal of effort, he finally managed to kill one.

In that instant, a warm current surged into my body.

Your level has been raised.

At the same time, his injuries began to heal rapidly, and his strength was mostly restored.

Minos's eyes lit up.

He found his rhythm, trading injury for life, gaining experience, and then using leveling up to recover health.

So he began to fight the swarm of lizard goblins relentlessly, getting hurt, killing monsters, leveling up, healing, getting hurt again, killing monsters again, leveling up again, and healing again.

It's a dangerous balance; one wrong move and he could really die here.

But he held on.

The level gradually increased, level 11, level 12, level 13 —

The situation finally reversed when his level surpassed that of the goblins.

Those lizard monsters that once beat him to a pulp are now being chased and hacked down by him.

He fought for a while longer and leveled up to level 20.

Then he stopped.

It's not that I don't want to kill them, it's that killing them would be pointless.

Once his level exceeded the monsters by too much, the experience gained decreased significantly, and continuing to kill them yielded very little benefit. Moreover, he had promised not to kill them all and to leave some for them to reproduce.

There's an even more practical problem: the axe in his hand is already worn out.

The initial axe that Leylin gave me is now full of nicks and chips, and in some places it's even chipped. If I were to chop it down again, it would do less damage than a fist.

Minos threw away the broken axe and looked around.

There were thousands of lizard goblin corpses lying haphazardly on the ground, and the stench of blood was overwhelming.

He took a deep breath, turned around, and walked out.

When Minos emerged from the cave, several staff members were chatting outside the wooden hut.

They heard footsteps and turned around.

Then their expressions became quite interesting.

It was a person covered in blood, with blood smeared on their face, hair, and clothes. The person looked like they had just been pulled out of a pool of blood, and a strong smell of blood hit you, making you frown.

But there was a strange sense of satisfaction on his face.

He looked just like the Khorne champion.

The staff members exchanged glances, their expressions calm.

That's nothing. They've seen even more outrageous cases. Some people go in fully dressed, but come out wearing only their underwear.

Some people go in full of vigor, but come out being carried out.

Some people went in and never came out again. When they went back in to look for them, they found that half of their bodies had been eaten away by goblins.

The staff pointed to a small, detached wooden cabin next door.

"The bathroom is over there, and there are clean clothes next to it. Go wash up yourself."

Minos nodded and staggered over.

When he finished showering and changing his clothes, the staff had already gone into the cave.

They need to take stock of the losses and see how many goblins have died.

Then they saw the corpses all over the ground.

"This—" a young staff member gasped, "How many have been killed?"

The older one sighed and began to count.

After he finished counting, he fell silent.

"What's wrong? How much?"

"Eight hundred and eighty-eight."

There was silence.

Eight hundred and eighty-eight means they will have to cast the [Resurrection of the Dead] spell eight hundred and eighty-eight times.

This will greatly increase the workload. Reviving so many dead goblins at once is really exhausting.

These staff members are all spellcasters who possess the fifth-tier magic [Resurrection of the Dead].

They can revive those who failed the challenge and were killed by monsters, as well as the monsters killed by the challengers.

Once the monster is resurrected, it can be farmed again.

After all, it's impossible to just slowly wait for these monsters to multiply on their own; that would take far too long.

Therefore, the staff are now in a real bind, since there are too many dead goblins and it will probably take a long time to revive them all.

"Is this kid the reincarnation of a god of death?" someone muttered.

"They have the highest-level credentials, the kind with no time limit," the older one said. "They can stay in there as long as they want. Even if they die in there, we'll have to go in and revive them."

Generally speaking, there is a time limit for anyone grinding experience in the Goblin Cave.

This is both an imitation of the game's mechanics and because in reality, if there were no time limit, some people would really be like the sixth person in the game, spending a long time to kill all the monsters, which would be a waste of time.

However, the token that Leylin gave Minos was the kind with no time limit. Minos could stay inside as long as he wanted, and even if he died inside, someone would come and revive him so that he could continue to fight monsters.

However, Minos didn't do that; once he had leveled up enough, he left on his own.

Minos had a blast grinding monsters, but it was tough on the staff.

Another staff member said with a bitter face, "Next time he comes, I'll have to pay myself extra for working overtime first."

"Dream on."

Several people sighed and began to work, chanting the magic incantation for "resurrection of the dead."

One after another, beams of light appeared, and the dead lizard goblins began to slowly rise, looking around blankly. They did not attack the staff who had resurrected them, but instead wandered off in a daze.

One of the staff members wiped his sweat, looked at the resurrected goblins all over the ground, and couldn't help but curse, "Damn it, next time let him wreak havoc in Ogre Canyon."

At this moment, Minos was on his way to his next destination.

He opened the map and looked at the second location marked on it: Ogre Canyon.

I'm level 20 now, so I should be able to give it a try, right?

He had no idea how much psychological trauma he had just inflicted on those staff members.

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