The morning sun filtered through the golden canopy of the Titanwood, casting a serene light on a scene of utter frustration.
Clyde stood in a clearing near his hut, striking a pose that could only be described as "generic anime protagonist." His legs were spread wide, knees bent, one hand thrust forward with fingers curled into a claw.
"Fireball!" he shouted.
Nothing happened. A hummingbird paused mid-air, stared at him, and buzzed away.
Clyde shifted his stance. "Lightning Bolt! Thunder... Strike!"
Silence. Not even a spark.
He dropped his hand, exhaling a long, annoyed breath. "Okay. So no elemental projection. No ranged attacks. Great."
He sat down on a mossy root, feeling the hum of the mana reservoir in his gut. It was full, swirling with that thick, heavy energy he had cultivated from the boar meat and the sap. He could feel the power, but he couldn't shape it. Every time he tried to push it out of his body to form a projectile, it fizzled into mist the moment it left his skin.
"It wants to stay inside," Clyde mused. "It's dense. Heavy."
He closed his eyes and focused. Instead of trying to throw the energy away, he tried to bring it to the surface. He visualized the mana not as a bullet, but as a second skin. He pushed it through his pores, willing it to harden.
Vrummm.
A low, metallic sound resonated from his body.
Clyde opened his eyes and gasped.
His skin was gone. Or rather, it was covered. A translucent, shimmering layer of gray energy coated his arm. It wasn't glowing light; it looked like hazy, spectral iron. The texture was rough and plated, interlocking in jagged shapes.
He looked closely. The pattern wasn't random. It looked exactly like the chitinous plating of the Iron-Hide Boar.
"You are what you eat," Clyde whispered, turning his arm in the light. "Literally."
He stood up and expanded the flow. The gray energy surged, covering his chest, his legs, his face. He felt heavier, grounded. The world sounded slightly muffled, as if he were wearing a diving helmet.
He walked over to a boulder the size of a microwave. He didn't wind up. He just jabbed it.
CRACK.
His fist sank two inches into the solid stone. Dust plumed.
Clyde pulled his hand back. No pain. Not even a vibration in his knuckles.
He looked at the massive root of the Titanwood. He backed up twenty feet. Then, he sprinted.
He didn't slow down. He lowered his shoulder and slammed into the wood at full speed.
THUD.
He bounced off, landing on his butt. The tree didn't care—it was the Titanwood, after all—but Clyde felt fine. It was like crashing into a wall of pillows. The impact had been absorbed entirely by the gray shell.
"It's armor," Clyde realized, a grin splitting his face beneath the mana mask. "I have tank stats."
He spent the next hour testing the limits. He punched rocks until he had a pile of gravel. He let a heavy branch fall on his head. He even tried cutting his arm with his obsidian knife; the blade skidded off the mana layer with a shower of sparks.
Confidence, intoxicating and dangerous, began to swell in his chest.
He wasn't the prey anymore. He was a walking tank.
He looked toward the northern boundary. The "Violet Weaver"—the massive spider that had terrified him on Day 1—usually nested in the dark canopy just outside the safe zone.
"I need to know," Clyde said, clenching his gray, plated fists. "I need to know if I can actually fight."
The plan was simple. Lure the spider to the edge. Fight it with the safety of the barrier at his back. If things went wrong, step backward into the Titanwood's aura.
Clyde stood one point five meters from the edge of the safe zone. He picked up a rock and hurled it into the dark canopy.
"Hey! Eight-legs! Wake up!"
He flared his mana. He didn't know how to "taunt," but he pushed his energy out, making the gray armor glow brighter, acting like a beacon in the gloom.
Above him, the shadows shifted.
Two yellow eyes ignited in the darkness. Then four more. Then two more.
The Violet Weaver descended on a thick cable of silk. It was hideous up close. Its body was covered in coarse purple hair, and its mandibles dripped with a fluid that smoked when it hit the ground. It landed with a heavy thump ten yards outside the barrier.
It chittered, a sound like dry bones rattling. It seemed annoyed to be woken up by a hairless ape.
"Come on," Clyde challenged, raising his fists.
The spider didn't hesitate. It lunged.
It covered the distance in a blur. Clyde didn't flinch. He stepped out of the safe zone to meet it.
CLANG.
The spider's front leg, tipped with a scythe-like claw, slammed into Clyde's chest. It sounded like a sledgehammer hitting an anvil.
Clyde slid back three feet, his boots carving furrows in the dirt, but he didn't fall. The gray armor held.
"Is that all you got?" Clyde yelled, the adrenaline singing in his blood.
He stepped in and threw a right hook. He aimed for the spider's face. The beast jerked back, and his fist connected with its shoulder joint.
*CRUNCH.*
Chitin cracked. The spider screeched, stumbling back.
It worked. He could hurt it.
The spider hissed, its eyes narrowing. It struck again—a flurry of blows. Left, right, stab, slash.
Clang. Clang. Crack.
On the third hit, Clyde saw a spiderweb fracture appear on his chest plate.
On the fourth, the fracture spread to his shoulder.
On the fifth, a chunk of the mana armor flaked off, dissolving into mist.
"Oh, crap," Clyde muttered.
He focused on his mana reservoir. Repair!
He pushed more energy into the shell. Instantly, the gray plating reformed, smoothing over the cracks. Good as new.
Clyde laughed. "I can do this all day!"
He charged again. The spider retreated, scrambling backward. Clyde followed, swinging wildly. He landed another blow on its leg, shattering the tip. The spider retreated further.
Clyde pressed the advantage, drunk on power. He wasn't looking at the ground. He wasn't looking at the trees. He was only looking at the monster he was beating.
He didn't realize he was now more then eighteen meters away from the barrier.
He didn't realize the spider wasn't fleeing; it was leading.
The spider suddenly stopped. It reared up, exposing its underbelly.
Clyde wound up for a haymaker. "Goodnight!"
The spider didn't strike. It opened its mouth.
THWIP.
It wasn't a stream of acid. It was a net. A thick, wet, chaotic tangle of white silk exploded from the creature's maw.
Clyde didn't have time to dodge. The silk hit him mid-stride.
The impact knocked him off his feet. The webbing was heavy, sticky, and incredibly strong. It wrapped around his arms, his torso, his legs. He hit the ground, bound like a mummy.
"Hey!" Clyde yelled, struggling.
He tried to rip the silk. He flexed his mana-enhanced muscles. The silk stretched, but it didn't break. It was elastic. The more he struggled, the tighter it clung to the jagged ridges of his boar-armor.
The spider loomed over him. It wasn't screeching anymore. It was clicking softly—a sound of satisfaction. It raised one of its scythe-legs high into the air, aiming for the gap in the silk where Clyde's neck was exposed.
"No, no, no—" Clyde panicked, flaring his armor, trying to thicken it.
Suddenly, the spider froze.
Its multiple eyes widened. It dropped its leg. It looked to the left, toward the dense forest.
It didn't hiss. It didn't fight. It turned and bolted. The massive arachnid scrambled up a tree and vanished into the canopy with terrified speed.
Clyde lay there, confused. "What? Did I scare it?"
Then he felt it.
Thump.
The earth vibrated.
Thump.
From the undergrowth, a nightmare emerged. It was the Armored Behemoth. The blind turtle-bear he had seen weeks ago. It was the size of a garbage truck. Its shell was covered in moss and spikes. Its face was a slab of bone with no eyes, only flared, twitching nostrils and massive, bat-like ears.
It walked into the clearing, sniffing the air. It let out a low growl that vibrated in Clyde's chest.
Clyde stopped breathing.
It's blind, he remembered. It hunts by sound and smell.
He was lying in the open. He was wrapped in spider silk. If he struggled, the sound of the tearing web would be like a gunshot to those sensitive ears.
The Behemoth turned its head. It faced Clyde directly. It sniffed. It could smell the spider silk. It could smell the boar mana radiating from Clyde.
It took a step closer. A massive paw, tipped with claws the size of butcher knives, crushed a sapling flat.
Clyde's heart was hammering against his ribs. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Could it hear his heart?
The Behemoth leaned down. Its snout was five feet away. Hot, fetid breath washed over Clyde.
Clyde squeezed his eyes shut. Think. Think!
He couldn't move. The silk was glued to him. It was glued to...
It was glued to the armor.
Clyde's eyes snapped open.
The silk wasn't touching his skin. It was stuck to the jagged, spectral plating of the mana shell.
The Behemoth growled again, opening a maw filled with flat, crushing teeth. It was deciding if this web-wrapped bundle was worth eating.
Clyde took a slow, silent breath.
He focused on the flow of mana maintaining the armor. It was a constant stream from his gut to his skin.
He cut the connection.
Pop.
There was no sound, only a sensation of weight vanishing. The gray, iron-like plating flickered and dissolved into nothingness.
The spider silk, which had been wrapped tightly around the bulky armor, suddenly lost its form. The structure underneath it had disappeared. The tight cocoon collapsed, becoming a loose pile of sticky ropes draping over Clyde's human form.
There was now a six-inch gap between Clyde's body and the webbing.
He didn't move. Not yet.
The Behemoth paused. The scent had changed. The strong smell of "Iron-Hide Boar" had vanished, replaced by the faint, confusing scent of human.
The monster snorted. It swept its snout through the air one last time, decided that the tasty boar had apparently teleported away, and grunted in annoyance. It turned its massive bulk around and lumbered off into the woods, following the scent trail of the fleeing spider.
Clyde lay in the pile of loose silk for ten full minutes. He waited until the vibrations in the earth had completely faded.
Slowly, carefully, he slid his arm out of the collapsed web. Then his leg.
He crawled out of the silk pile like a snake shedding its skin.
He stood up, shaking. He was covered in sweat. He felt naked without the armor, small and fleshy and weak.
He looked at the dark forest. It was quiet again, indifferent to his near-death experience.
He turned and sprinted. He didn't stop until he crossed the mossy line of the Titanwood's aura. He collapsed at the base of the massive roots, his chest heaving.
He looked at his hands. No gray plating. Just skin.
"Stupid," he whispered to himself, his voice trembling. "So stupid."
He had punched a rock and thought he was a god. The forest had just reminded him that he was barely a snack. The armor was a tool, a good tool, but it wasn't invincibility. And it certainly wasn't a substitute for a brain.
Clyde leaned his head back against the warm, humming bark of the Titanwood.
"Level 2," he muttered. "I'm maybe Level 2."
He closed his eyes. He wouldn't make that mistake again. Next time, the armor would be the last resort, not the opening move.