A few hours passed and Greg woke up in the same cave. The centipedes were still hard at work trying to widen the cave entrance, but they still haven't succeeded yet.

  Some of them even tried to ram the outer walls to collapse the entire section, but somehow none of their attempts have succeeded. But Greg was more focused on the changes that have happened in his body.

  Before, he looked like a small goblin child, but by how his limbs have grown and he had gained a little bit of muscle, he looked more like a young teenager. And when he tried to flex his hand to check his strength, something unusual happened.

  His knuckles and part of the fingers were covered by a green energy and he felt like he could even break rocks using them. He tried to punch one of the rocks that were laying on the ground and it didn't shatter like what he had expected, but he could see small craters and cracks forming on its smooth surface.

  Greg smiled and looked back at the armored centipedes. He again approached the entrance, but this time he felt different; he felt stronger.

  One by one he started pounding on their ugly heads, and it didn't even take ten tries to break open their skulls and make meat paste out of their brains. He also remembered to save their End Cores for later, as he partly remembered eating them and gaining this kind of amazing power.

  After one centipede would fall, another would take its place, and Greg used the small cave entrance to his advantage and they weren't even able to land a single hit on him.

  Half an hour later, Greg had killed fourteen centipedes (fifteen counting the one he had killed before) and now he was holding all their cores. He ate them one by one, as he could remember from his muddy memories and with a disgusting expression, but they didn't taste like anything.

  His body again started to glow up and he felt somewhat stronger, but the changes were not as flashy as the first time he had done so. But when he tried to test his strength on a random stone, it shattered instantly.

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  Greg then walked around the cavern to see if there were more of such monsters, and when he found none in a certain proximity, he came back to the blue bubbly water place and took a bath.

  From fighting all these monsters, his body and the ragged clothes he was wearing were covered with all kinds of brain matter and fluids, so a bath seemed necessary.

  Next, Greg hung his clothes above the boiling water and let them dry as he walked back to the place he had killed all the crawling monsters and gathered some of their flesh using his sharp nails.

  He again used the boiling water to cook all that meat and even let some to dry overhead in hopes to preserve it for later.

  "Bon appétit," Greg said, but didn't immediately start eating.

  He was a normal human a few hours ago, and looking at the centipede still disgusted him to some level. But after his hunger grew to unbearable levels because of his evolution, he had no choice but to close his eyes and say, "Now you're a goblin, goddammit," and he began consuming the boiled meat.

  The thing didn't taste disgusting or anything bad, like he had hoped. It tasted closer to bland chicken, as he didn't have access to spices or salt in this steamy place.

  Greg also wanted to try those mushrooms growing on the ceiling, and maybe they would taste good too? But he didn't for a few reasons.

  First, eating unknown mushrooms that produce light was not really a smart choice. Second, they were too high up, as they only grew in the ceiling of this large cavern. And third, Greg was not on a picnic.

  He might have explored some part of this underground place, but he didn't know what other monsters resided here or what else he could attract by cooking up monster food.

  So, after Greg was done eating and after his clothes were dry, he went on another stroll to explore more of these unmapped places and try to find a way out, and maybe check what the surface had to offer.

  But the more he explored, the more this cavern filled with bubbling water spread, and there seemed to be no end to the ways it went. And Greg was right about worrying about more monsters residing here.

  Quickly, he saw some overgrown spiders, a fish with crab legs and pincers that can walk on land, and more such centipede-like creatures way off in the distance. He didn't try to fight them or get close to them and just went around them.

  In a few places, he was ambushed by some of those spiders, and they were troublesome to deal with, but Greg somehow survived and even gained two more End Cores to his ever-growing collection.

  Eating this kind of End Core gave him an ability to climb on walls, as his palms and the soles of his feet became somewhat sticky.

  Greg was having the time of his life thinking he was that one superhero who could shoot webs through his arms, and even if he could not and could just climb anywhere and everywhere, the ability seemed very useful.

  "Eat and grow, huh?"

  But all fun and games came to a sudden halt when Greg saw something white in the distance. To be more precise, they were a pile of bones, and not monster bones, but human bones.

  He checked his surroundings for any life in the area, and when he found none, he decided to approach the place.