It was only a while later into his nightly drive that Matt decided to check his blinking notifications. He had noticed it a while ago but had opted to ignore it in favor of appreciating the calm night for a while longer.

  [Repair] (uncommon) → [Repair] (uncommon 1)

  [Revitalize] (common) → [Revitalize] (common 4)

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  He was always happy to see his skills leveling up. [Repair] gaining only 1 level was a tad disappointing, but, to be fair, repairing the buggy had been a fairly simply endeavor involving him just casting the skill on repeat, so maybe a single level wasn’t all that bad.

  Gaining 4 levels in [Revitalize] though was incredible, especially since he was going to have to use it a few more times at least on his drive through the unending desert, so getting 1 or 2 more wasn’t that unrealistic of an expectation.

  He couldn’t simply rush it though. While he wanted the skill to evolve as soon as possible, he also needed to have a direction for where he wanted it to go. Judging by [Mend]’s own progress, it was fair to say that [Revitalize] would probably follow a similar path, but that wasn’t a foregone conclusion. Matt had to keep an open mind when it came to skills. Perhaps he could even find an unexplored path, getting himself one of those forbearer titles Tara had spoken about.

  Nothing could be done about it now though. He needed to get out of the desert and find somewhere safe. Hopefully then he’d be able to dedicate his all into improving his skills.

  “Soon,” he mumbled to himself as he continued his drive across the never ending desert.

  A couple of hours, and a few cycles of [Revitalize], later, Matt finally saw something different. He’d been activating his [Sense Mana] skill as much as possible, to both train it and make sure he wasn’t missing anything, especially with how dull the drive had been with the scenery never changing. The figure he'd seen though, he spotted with his eyes first. Doubting his own senses, he waited for his skill to confirm what he had seen. A few seconds later, it did, confirming that, indeed, something containing mana was a few dozen feet away from his position.

  Matt let out an inward cheer on getting that confirmation. He had almost lost hope of seeing anything in the everlasting desert. He did remain cautious though, at least until he could get a proper [Identify] off.

  He didn’t want to be one of those people with the ‘attack first, ask questions later’ mentality, and it was also safer to know what he was up against, especially since the distance and its general outline, along with it being the dead of the night, made it impossible to distinguish any discernible features.

  Sand Golem (level 14)

  And just like that, a grin grew on Matt’s face. The golem only had 2 levels on him. It wasn’t too weak that he wouldn’t be able to measure his own strength against it, and not too strong that he’d be on the back foot for most of the fight, which meant it was the perfect target.

  Between the temple, repairing the buggy, and driving in an empty desert with nothing but sand as his companion, Matt was aching for a fight, and to finally test his new gloves out.

  He switched the engine off and started walking towards the golem, making sure the buggy was far enough as to not suffer any collateral damage, while also keeping an eye on his surroundings. Just in case.

  When he was around 60 feet away from the golem, he could finally see it for what it truly was, and it was something alright.

  The golem was almost double Matt’s height with a large, bulky body made of… well, sand, that appeared to be shifting and moving the entire time. Its arms were almost the length of its entire body, and it wasn’t walking as much as dragging itself across the desert sand, as evident by its legs being connected to the sand as if it were part of the desert itself.

  Matt shook off the excitement and got ready. He didn’t know much about golems, but they weren’t known for their intellect, which made them predictable, and predictable is what he needed for his first field test.

  He kept his scepter in the ring, not taking it out since throwing mana orbs at the golem wasn’t really gonna help him get a sense of his boosted stats. Being up close and personal while throwing punches and dodging hits would though, so that was the plan he was going with. Simple, effective, and straight to the point.

  Cracking his knuckles, he started rushing towards the unsuspecting golem, ready to unleash hell. When Matt was a dozen feet away, the golem finally took notice.

  Not waiting for an invitation, the golem raised both arms above its head, cupping both hands together as it prepared to slam its fists down on Matt’s incoming form, clearly not holding back.

  Matt activated the glove for the first time and immediately regretted the decision, almost slapping himself for forgetting Kara’s warning about the drawbacks of the item, as the first feeling he experienced was an intense strain and tightening across his entire being, almost causing him to stumble and fall. Thankfully, his body seemed to adjust to the influx of power fairly quickly, as the strain soon turned into an electrifying feeling, as every one of his muscles thrummed with power, like a caged beast finally unleashed.

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  His speed doubled in an instant, easily dodging the incoming attack that sent sand flying everywhere as it smashed into the ground with devastating force.

  Matt reached the golem a breath later, throwing a punch with his right that held so much power it made the entire midsection explode into sand and dust, separating the two halves as the lower collapsed into a heap of sand, while the upper fell on top of it.

  Matt took a step back to reassess. His punch had landed, of that he was sure, but he had barely felt an impact. Almost like he had punched air or water, a thought that was soon confirmed when sand coalesced under the golem, raising his upper half up as a new bottom half formed under it in mere seconds.

  The newly formed golem roared in unrestrained fury before hurling its entire arm at a slightly confused Matt.

  The momentary confusion faded as Matt sprinted towards the incoming arm, ducking under it at the last second before sending another punch at the golem’s midsection.

  The punch landed with a thud as sand exploded from the golem’s back, new sand already replacing the old one as soon as the hit had landed.

  “An adapting fucker, huh,” Matt muttered while staying on the offensive, not giving the golem time to regenerate as he threw punch after punch into the sand, all feeling redundant yet therapeutic at the same time. At least until one of his punches landed on something with a little more structure, shattering it completely.

  The golem froze mid-smash before turning into a pile of sand that fell on top of Matt.

  You have defeated Sand Golem (level 14)

  “Well, that told me jack shit,” Matt complained.

  The entire fight took only a few seconds. His health hadn’t even reached 90% and that was without him even casting [Repair].

  As for the stat boost itself, it was incredible. He felt faster, stronger, more connected to his body, but not only that, he also felt the world was more vibrant around him. His ears could hear clearer, and his eyes could see further. Even now, he was able to notice details he would've missed before, like the dragging marks on the sand, indicating there were more golems in the area.

  Everything seemed to have gotten a boost, not just his punching power, although that seemed to have drastically improved as well. He still wasn’t sure if the fight had been this one-sided because of his newfound strength or if he had just gotten lucky and somehow landed a punch on the golem’s heart or core. The one thing he knew for sure was that a single sand golem wasn’t enough, and luckily for him, there seemed to be more where that came from.

  It didn’t take long for Matt to find another golem. This time though, he decided to go straight for its core, punching at its heart, the same spot where he had found it in the previous golem.

  He felt the same sensation as his fist collided with something, shattering it into pieces, ending the fight right then and there.

  You have defeated Sand Golem (level 13)

  “They can’t be this weak. This is ridiculous. It’s just free experience at this point,” he once more complained to no one in particular. The fact that killing two golems hadn’t given him a level didn’t go unnoticed, though. In the dungeon his progress had been rapid, gaining two to four levels per fight, but that gravy boat seemed to have sailed.

  It could also be that the golems simply gave way less experience since they had such an obvious weakness. Getting a confirmation on that would be difficult, but one thing was for sure: he needed more bodies to test on, and preferably something other than golems.

  Matt got back on the buggy and onto his next target, making sure to keep [Repair] running the entire time. He had more testing to do and didn’t want to deal with the long cooldown of the boosting skill, and keeping the healing ability on was much safer than him forgetting to cast it and passing out from the health loss.

  With the next golem he came across, he tried something different: blasting it with mana.

  While his mana control was good, his aim was abysmal. And with the core’s size being that of a golf ball, it was even more challenging to hit, especially when the damn golem refused to stay still.

  After firing two dozen mana orbs, one finally managed to land on its intended target, collapsing the golem into a heap, although by that point Matt wasn’t really aiming anymore, just firing and hoping for the best.

  Over the next hour, Matt managed to find, and defeat, five more sand golems, each time while trying something different. First, he tried exploding the mana orbs, which had worked as well as you’d expect it to, blasting both sand and core.

  With another one, he tried his mana wave, which pushed away all the sand that was the golem’s body, revealing the bright red gem that was its core. It had been an interesting interaction that he had never expected. Even now he still had no idea how the skill really worked, but he was starting to get more familiarized with it.

  One of his brighter ideas, though, was trying out some wrestling moves on the sand construct, just for the heck of it. It didn’t really work out since the constantly shifting sand was acting more like a liquid, making grabbing and landing any hits on it utterly pointless.

  He did tank a couple of hits too, just to see how powerful the golems really were. They did pack a punch, however the damage seemed to be minimal at best.

  What really annoyed Matt though, was that he was now eight golems in, and still no level up, which made him both not want to waste time on the stupid sand constructs, and want to kill them even harder because fuck them for being so useless.

  You have defeated 2x Sand Golem (level 13)

  You have defeated 3x Sand Golem (level 14)

  You have defeated Sand Golem (level 15)

  Matt sighed, closing his notifications. Things were making less and less sense by the day. The mentalist he had faced at the start of the dungeon was much tougher, with some scary ass skills, while only being level 12. These guys were higher level, but even ten of them wouldn’t match up to the spellcaster, let alone Matt. His boosted stats couldn’t be the only explanation, something else had to be at play.

  Or was it really that simple?

  He did have a tendency to overthink things, but the golems being this weak was just too illogical.

  He had to find more monsters, because if levels weren’t an indication of power, then what was?

  Thirty minutes more of nothing-but-sand and Matt finally saw the first signs of civilization. It was far off in the distance, making it difficult to get a proper look, but even then he recognized the place in question, which appeared to be a solar farm.

  He remembered passing a solar farm on the bus ride to Hurghada, but he was sure it was next to the main road. Still, whether it was the same one or not, it was a clear sign that he was getting closer, which was all the motivation he needed.

  With renewed vigor and excitement, Matt started driving towards his new destination. Hurghada was calling for him, and that was a call he planned on answering.