Randin had just given Grey a history lesson then he left to go forge some equipment leaving Grey all alone in the cave with his own share of the crystal in his hands.
Seeing that Randin had left, Grey quickly decided to absorb the crystal in his hand so he could try increase his Earth affinity and it worked.
"The core gave me twenty points?! It has even surpassed my wind attribute and I'm not limited to the Earth in my hand. I can control the Earth around me." Grey smiled excitedly.
"How do I test this new theory out now?" Grey mumbled as he looked around when his eyes landed on the wall of the cave.
"Time to get to work." He smiled.
Heading to a wall in the cave, Grey stood in front of it and placed his hands outwardly not touching the wall and then he moved his hands in a circle before he pulled it back and shouted.
"Earth shard!" He said and a small Earth spike pulled out of the wall.
Then Grey quickly threw his hands outwardly towards another part of the wall causing the Earth shard to hit the wall precisely going at least three inches.
"Haha! Perfect." Grey smiled as he sat down cross legged again trying to recover his mana as much as possible.
"Now without being limited to the Earth in my hand, I can be more versatile in my use of my power. As long as I'm surrounded by Earth, then I can use it." Grey said as he kept meditating.
'I remember from the book that if I want to increase my Earth affinity apart from absorbing crystals, I could as well just head somewhere that's filled with Earth and meditate there.
Sounds easy enough after my wind magic. So when I get back, I will do that since I'm totally surrounded by Earth back at home close to my hideout.' He thought.
After a few minutes of deep meditation and moving his mana around, Grey's mana had finally recover and he stood up from the cave.
"Now, where did that dwarf head to?" Grey wondered as he came out of the cave.
And then he looked around trying to see if he could spot him across the dozen of caves around but it was impossible so he resorted to another thing.
Cupping his hands around his mouth, Grey inhaled air and then he released it while shouting.
"Randin! Where are you?"
His voice traveled far thanks to his use of wind magic and then he got a response back.
"Right here!" Listening in, Grey heard the voice coming from his south so he quickly used the simple flying wind magic he knew and gently flew towards the mountain.
The place where Randin was, was a mountain and as Grey stood in front of it, he could see the size of it as the mountain was big enough to fit around 50 regular humans in it.
Standing in front of the mountain, was Randin as he looked at Grey angrily.
"Why the hell did you have to shout?" Randin asked.
"I was looking for you and since I couldn't find you, I resulted to shouting. Any problem?" Grey asked with a raised brow.
"You fool! You could have attracted unwanted attention." Randin said slapping his forehead loudly.
"Unwanted attention? What kind of unwanted attention? Per my current knowledge, the beasts around here, are quite far away so they won't easily reach here. So what type of un…" Grey stuttered as he saw the sudden serious expression on Randin's and he pulled out his sword pointing it at Grey.
"You wanna fight me?" Grey laughed until Randin shook his head and then pointed his head to the side behind Grey.
Raising an eyebrow, Gey turned around and he could see a dozen short, green creatures in front of him. All of them had pointy ears and with short fangs in their mouth and they all pointed their spears towards Grey and Randin.
"What are they?" Grey asked. "Cause they don't look like beasts to me."
"They are called goblins. They had come along into this planet with those otherworlders. They hunt any dwarves that are left and in this current situation, I'm the only one left.
I have being smart enough to avoid them because I know I'm not strong enough to fight against them. But thanks to you, I am caught." Randin said.
"Do they have any special powers?" Grey asked as he was slowly twirling his fingers around while the goblin's spears lit up bright blue.
"Nope, but their spears do!" Randin shouted as a blue lightning bolt was shot out towards the two.
Randin quickly rolled around while Grey was quick to use wind magic to push himself away.
After regaining his footing, Grey looked at the goblins with a mix of shock and confused expression.
"Their weapons have the lightning attribute? But how come?" Grey wondered aloud.
"I would have quickly given you a history lesson but now is not the time." Randin said as he tapped his wrist and in front of Grey's eyes, an armour was suddenly wrapping around Randin then after it was done, a helmet finally settled on his head.
"One last question for now though, are they intelligent beings? And do they have a leader?" Grey asked.
"They are somewhat intelligent and can understand human language but can't speak it for some reason. They only speak goblin language. And yes, they have a leader. They call him the goblin lord. And she's very intelligent." Randin replied.
"Good. Cause after this place, I think I will visit the goblin lord next." Grey replied as his right arm erupted in flames while his left was suddenly surrounded by rocks.
'When I first saw them, my instincts screamed at me to run away but if I did that, Randin would struggle against them. And besides, if I keep running away from danger, how would I become a good enough mage.
So I have decided one thing, I will stay and fight. Maybe I could also take their spears.' He smiled.
"Before you charge forward, remember to not destroy any of their weapons because I need to examine them later." Randin warned.
"Wasn't planning on doing that!" Grey said as he pushed himself forward using the wind magic.