As Merlin entered the barracks, the first thing he noticed was that the amount of players on the training dummies was dwindling. There were still a few players on the training dummies that were there from the beginning, it seemed they hadn't learnt their lesson yet and were still doing the punishment quest.

Merlin approached General Perakeles, who turned to face him. Merlin greeted him respectfully before giving him an rough explanation of the problems happening at the farm, making sure to mention the goblin nest.

"Darn, they are multiplying too fast, I still haven't gotten the expedition team ready yet." General Perakeles was lost in thought for a moment, before piping up once more. "I'll rush together an extermination team to the best of my ability. I'm sorry to ask this, but we need someone to do reconnaissance before the main team can strike, are you up for the task?"

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[Common Quest]

The Lycoa Goblin Raid.

General Perakeles is quickly putting together an extermination squad for the village's ever growing goblin threat, he's asking you to attack the goblin nest to gauge their numbers and strength.

It's recommended you form a party before challenging the goblin nest. Goblins are even more deadly when fought in goblin nests, such as caves.

It is also recommended that you purchase a some form of light, such as a lantern or torch, as caves can get very dark.

Defeat the "Lycoa Goblin Nest" mini dungeon.

• Reward: 600 EXP

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"Yes sir, I need to go buy some equipment before I head out, excuse me." Merlin accepted the quest and made his way out of the barracks, there were a couple things he had to do first.

One of the things was acquiring a source of vision. New Genesis was full of situations where you'd need something specific to proceed, or you'd have to think out of the box to get around the problem. One such situation was darkness, not all dungeons had natural light sources, which meant the dungeon would be pitch black unless the player had some method of light production.

This could be solved in many ways, such as a wooden torch or lantern item. These items were easily acquired in stores, there were some caveats to this method however. The biggest issue is that you'd be a shining beacon to everything else in the cave, even outside of your visibility range, this could be partially negated by upgrading to a hooded lantern.

Another solution would be various forms of magic, such as fire or light magic. These typically had the same disadvantage of it being visible from a distance, but there was also the possibility of it consuming mana, and also the possibility of the light source vanishing if the caster was stunned, knocked unconscious or killed.

The last couple methods were all passive abilities typically found in race souls, the most useful and most common being night vision. There was also echolocation, although it was somewhat strange to get used to at first, this was commonly found in bat enemies, although some aquatic races had it too. And while not helpful with seeing in the dark, tremor-sense was an uncommon ability that let you sense the location of enemies as long as they were touching the same ground as you.

There were plenty of other methods to solve this, some being too rare to mention and others being so overly complicated it would have been better to just buy a torch.

Merlin made his way east, ending up near the base of the hill he originally came down from. He was currently standing in the main commerce area, most of the stores for players were in this general location, although there were stores dotted everywhere around the village. To his right was the soul forge, it currently had a few players hanging around. Across the street from the soul forge was the store he came here for, Lychester's Provisions.

Merlin entered the store, the little bell attached to the door chimed, informing the young woman at the counter that someone entered her store. Glancing around, Merlin noticed that the inside of the store was full of well-stocked shelves containing a large variety of goods, from stacks of parchment, farming equipment and bags of flour, to flasks of oil, bundles of rope, lanterns and torches.

It was a store that sold anything that someone would want to buy, anything they didn't have was usually covered by one of the more specialised shops around the village.

"Hey there, can I help you find anything?" The young woman spoke up from behind the counter, she was thin, her skin was rather light and her long curly red hair was tied up in a pony tail, at least to the best of her ability.

As Merlin approached closer, a name appeared over the woman's head, "Zoey Lychester".

"Hello, could I please get two torches, three flasks of oil, a sling with two sets of sling ammo and a tinderbox." Merlin came out with a list, leaving a somewhat surprised look on Zoey's face at first, but she soon caught up.

"Right, so that'd be 2 copper for the torches. A silver each for the oil flasks, three silver total. Five copper for the sling, and four copper for the two sets of ammo, nine copper total. And three silver for the tinderbox." Zoey talked while sliding beads around on a wooden board, a few moments after the clicking of beads stopped and she came back with the total. "Your total is seven silver and one copper."

Merlin pulled out all six of his silver, and eleven copper pieces, placing them on the counter. This purchase left Merlin with a measly seven copper, but it was required.

"Thank you, I'll be just a moment." Zoey took the coins, sliding them into a tray underneath the counter. Then she began running around the store, picking out all the gear Merlin had asked for. After a minute or two everything was placed neatly on the counter. "Here we are."

Merlin started picking up the equipment, shoving them into his inventory one item at a time. When he was done, he thanked Zoey and left the store.

A large red alert box appeared in Merlin's view, this sent a wave of panic through his body, but he calmed down when he read the message.

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[Message from the devs!]

You've got one hour left until the server is shut down for the day, you will receive another notification when it's time to log out.

If you do not leave by that time you will be forcibly disconnected, please make sure you're in a safe location when you log out.

└───────────────────

One hour was just enough time to finish the dungeon off. Merlin picked up the pace, running down the cobblestone streets, on his way to the farm.

He passed by a lot more players while taking this route, most looked to be doing the quests Merlin hadn't even bothered touching this time around. Merlin planned on doing the main quests in the area and then leaving before a new wave of players arrived.

As Merlin arrived at the farm, a black figure in the distance caught his eye. It was Typhoeus, and it looked like he was doing the goblin tracking quest. Merlin was a little surprised, he adapted fast in the previous timeline, but not this fast. It seemed Merlin's influence had benefited this guy the most. Merlin followed behind him as he entered the forest.

Typhoeus had his scythe sheathed, even he knew it was too cumbersome to wield while walking. He noticed goblins in the distance, guarding a cave entrance. Typhoeus quickly hid behind a tree before he was noticed, a few seconds later he received his mission complete notification.

As Typhoeus peeked out from around the tree once more, a small metal ball flew past his head, embedding itself in the goblin's eye. As he turned around in a panic to see where the ball had come from, he saw a young looking man with pale skin and white hair, spinning around a strap of leather.

The pale man released the leather strap at the apex of his swing, and yet another metal ball flew past him. The metal ball pierced into the skull of the same goblin who was hit with the previous ball, the goblin went limp, falling to the ground as a corpse with only two hits.

"Hey there, I'd recommend that you turn off combat assistance." These were the only words the pale man spoke before running past him, Typhoeus got a glimpse of the player's username, "Merlin".

Typhoeus watched from the treeline as Merlin ran at the last goblin that was standing as a guard, he could only stand there in awe as Merlin parried the goblin's spear away before moving in and cleaving the goblin's throat out, killing the goblin in two hits.

Typhoeus was shocked, the fastest he could kill a goblin was twenty seconds, but Merlin had killed the goblin in less than two by using a move that wasn't supported by the system.