22 Instant annihilation

Mark woke up to the sound of his alarm, without opening his eyes he then snoozed his phone.

Half an hour later when the second alarm sounded he decided to get up. The apartment was empty, the only one living in here was him. It was a refreshing feeling for someone who lived with his father for the last 18 years.

He walked on the cold floor to the kitchen, made himself a cup of black tea, and sat down on the couch in his living room.

Mark took a sip and turned on his laptop. The screen lit up and the first thing he did was look up a gate to raid. Finally having finished his schooling Mark decided to relax for some time. Relaxing means writing spells and lazying around. It was soothing for his mind.

However today he concluded that he should start doing something again. It wasn´t healthy to not come out of his home for days.

'Free C-rank gate with no spots reserved? Is this a dream? It´s only a few miles away too.'

Seeing such an opportunity he didn´t falter and immediately reserved the gate.

'Official raid time 11:00 AM and let´s go'

He put on his robe strapped the grimoire to his waist and set off.

After one very uncomfortable Uber ride, he arrived at the site. It was at a mall this time.

The FBH employee guarding the site let him come through without a question.

'So this is the power of being dressed properly.'

The gate wasn´t very big for its rank. It was just about enough for your average human.

'Despite the high magic reading, it looks like I´ll be fighting dwarves.' Mark thought and stepped inside.

Immediately afterwards the grimoire floated from his hand, a barrier surrounded him and magic circles appeared in front of his two eyes.

'Page 13, Magician´s eyes, vision: thermal'

Trying not to disrupt the monsters with his own source of light he changed his vision accordingly. However, this turned useless when he turned a corner.

There were several torches on the cave walls.

'Well, being cautious never killed anyone.' he said turning off the thermal vision.

This wasn´t the only function of the spell, its most prominent use was a new targeting system, which found the right target by analyzing temperature, movement, breathing, and mana. It was fully configurable of course. Another function was seeing what spells were currently active and with what configurations.

Mark continued on his stride through the cave which was becoming more and more like a road as he went deeper.

*Ding*

An arrow bounced back from the barrier.

In the distance, there were two targets crouching behind a rock.

'Page 3, Automatic rock spike'

"Yahr!!" High pitched screams sounded through the dungeon.

Mark came closer only to find two green humanoid figures.

'Goblins? Those are E-rank monsters though. I´ve never heard of them appearing inside a dungeon with this high of a rank.'

He took a closer look at the creatures. They were a little bit taller than what one would expect from a goblin, but also not burly enough to be considered hobgoblins.

'Does something like a high goblin exist?' he asked himself. 'Well that´s a question for later. Page 11, Water jet, targeting: manual'

He cut through the monsters´ bodies like nothing with the high-pressure stream of water and stuffed the essence stones inside his pockets.

Mark went further and on his way, he found a big lump of mana on the ground.

'Goblins capable of magic? That is probably the boss monster.'

He carefully stepped around the obvious trap and after one another corner the cave opened up. There were several huts made out of wood. The smell of meat being cooked also assaulted Mark´s nose.

There were many incomprehensible voices coming from the huts, but Mark decided to ignore those that were not an immediate threat and look over the camp.

At the end of the dungeon there sat a goblin in front of his hut. He had a sharp machete on his waist and a crimson cap on his head. He was feasting on a piece of meat. After finishing his meal he threw the leftover on a pile.

'I should´ve checked if there were some previous attempts to clear this gate.'

It was a pile of human limbs which were gnawed to the bones with only the fingers left untouched. After seeing the intruder, looking his way the goblin smiled at Mark.

'Page 2, Magic-siphoning barrier, permeability: light'

An excessive amount of mana then left his body. This was probably the most he spent on a single spell, although it was still just about 10% percent.

'Page 1, Flame stream, temperature: 2000°C, range: 100m'

The cave was instantly turned into hell. Everything in Mark´s sight was immediately ablaze. The monsters were shrieking in pain.

After a minute there was complete silence. The monster in front of him was reduced to a torched corpse. This was probably one of the fastest boss fights Mark had.

"You want to cook me then get cooked yourselves, bastards."

'Page 9, Temperature control, Page 10 Air supply'

Mark then went collecting the essence stones lying around the dungeon. In the end, he collected around 60.

'At least the earnings are decent.'

He hadn´t found any remains of the previous raid team such as equipment to take back for their families. It was probably used by the goblins to make their tools.

'And I had such a good mood today.' Mark thought to himself with sadness.