After trekking through the giant boulders and canyons for a day, it turned out he’d been close to the end of the winding paths. As Lloyd walked through the wilderness the giant stones began to become smaller and sparser, being replaced with lush vegetation and trees. Eventually Lloyd passed the last remnant of the canyons, a lone rock with a tree growing on top. Seeing as the first leg of his journey had concluded Lloyd decided to carve a marking into the rock.

  Using his spear that he’d recovered after the fight Lloyd etched in a picture of him killing the alpha compy with his spear. The picture wasn’t particularly good, but it was a good reminder of what had happened here. Be it for him or any adventurer who might find it one day.

  Leaving behind the stones Lloyd turned to the forest in front of him. Now Lloyd had seen big forests before, trees shooting up tens of metres into the sky, but they simply couldn’t compare to what he now beheld. Trees reaching over to ten metres thick towering far over a hundred metres in the air with canopies stretching wider than an Olympic racetrack. Yet despite the grandeur these trees held and how far apart they were Lloyd failed to see the top branches. The reason for this was the interlocking network of branches connecting the trees at all levels of elevation, despite the huge scale of the forest it was still jam packed with life. If he listened closely Lloyd could hear the sounds of the wildlife, but also the sounds of fights breaking out across the forest.

  Choosing to stay on the ground for now Lloyd set out into the forest weaving through a maze of ferns as tall as he was. After crossing a small stream and failing to resist swinging on a huge hanging vine Lloyd stumbled across two beasts duking it out in the forest. The smaller of the combatants was a crocodile that held itself higher above the ground than would usually be seen in its species. This creature used a combination of quick bites to the stomach and a water affinity to wear down its opponent. The opponent in question was a huge wombat like creature that was the size of a rhino that fought with raw strength and earth magic.

  The fight could go either way as the crocodile continuously weaved through the earth attacks and landed hit after hit while rarely receiving any in return. But on the other hand, the wombat had very high toughness and strength in exchange for other stats, allowing it to soak up the frequent attacks without much consequence. While it might seem bad that the wombat rarely landed any hits, the hits it did land were devastating, and one of its punches had nearly lost the crocodile its tail.

  Lloyd would have stepped in to try and speed up the fight, but both of them were stronger than the alpha compy by a fair margin and gaining the ire of both at once felt like a bad idea. Unable to safely interfere Lloyd crawled under a log and made himself scarce, while observing the fight. While the fight had started out with both parties an even match, the wounds the crocodile inflicted started bleeding heavily making the wombat sluggish and fail its hits more often.

  After the wombat had been lacerated by the crocodile for about a minute, it stopped being clumsy and started being overly aggressive. Instead of waiting for the crocodile to come close it would lunge forward and wildly swing where it wouldn’t be able to land the hit. This aggressive stance only ended up giving the crocodile more openings, and in it taking more damage.

  Eventually the wombat collapsed onto the ground from blood loss, the crocodile walked in front of the wombat victoriously. Now that all was said and done the two creatures decided to put aside the differences, and the crocodile summoned a water bullet to put the wombat out of its misery letting it die with dignity. After the wombat was dead the crocodile began to eat its fill, seeing as the crocodile was currently occupied with eating Lloyd decided to make a move.

  Since the crocodile was already injured from the fight Lloyd decided to charge a bolt to about an eighth of his mana reserves. After charging for ten seconds, he was done, and the crocodile was still occupied with its meal. Taking aim Lloyd lined up the bolt with its midsection and launched it forward, the reaction from the crock was instant. It whipped its whole body sideways and tuned to face him, but it was just too slow to dodge the bolt hurtling towards it. which then ripped through half of its tail and left a hole in one of its hind legs.

  Seeing Lloyd and then immediately becoming grievously wounded the crocodile immediately tuned tail and bolted away into the forest. Jumping out into the clearing Lloyd shot after it down many convoluted winding paths, while he followed, he also snuck in an identify on the creature.

  Aqua-tooth quinkana -lvl 11

  Now that he knew the name some things about the animal started coming back to him. quinkana were land dwelling crocodilians that could grow up to 5 or so metres and run at a max of fifty kilometres per hour. These facts also lined up as the size was roughly the same, and it was far faster than Lloyd but couldn’t show its full potential because of the dense foliage littering the forest floor and debilitated leg.

  After chasing the quinkana for a few minutes the path it had been taking ended in a small clearing with dense trees to all sides. Seeing that it had no where left to go, the quinkana tuned around and bared its teeth at him. Lloyd levelled his spear and got prepared to infuse the spear with his electrify skill, ready for the beasts’ charge. Dust kicked up and leaves were pushed back as the quinkana launched forward, even some of the smaller trees moved, just not outwards.

  Four thin trees shot forward gripping onto the slender body of the quinkana, trapped in midair by the trees the creature thrashed to try and escape but had no success. With the ‘trees’ now out of the bushes the truth started to come unravelled, instead of ending in stumps they ended in sharp points, they were legs. Looking closer it also seemed it wasn’t the legs themselves that had the quinkana trapped but rather a sheet of translucent white fabric.

  To stop its prey from escaping the legs started spinning the quinkana round and round the white sheet becoming more opaque each time. Lloyd was shocked and backed away staring at the legs in confusion, as he stared thoughts of what this thing was began to flood his head, so he decided to use identify.

  Net casting spider -lvl 19

  Lloyd looked upwards in horror finally seeing the source of the legs, dangling ten metres up in the air was a thin body hanging from a line of silk high up in the canopy. The more immediate problem was the eight beady eyes staring down at him, whether it was because of the identify or not he had no clue. Trapped here in front of the spider Lloyd was trying to figure out what to do. a level twelve he’d been confidant against since it was only a only four levels above his. But over ten levels higher was way too much, especially since it was in perfect condition.

  Deciding that this fight wasn’t worth it Lloyd turned around and went to sprint away, but after just one step he found himself ensnared in a sheet of silk. Looking down the sheet covered his entire midriff awkwardly squashing his arms into the rest of his body. The legs started to pull him back towards the main body, once he was back under the spider with the quinkana the legs started spinning him in circles. After spinning for a few seconds, the spider stopped, leaving him in a three-inch thick wrapping of silk with only his feet and head sticking out.

  The spider hung still for a minute waiting to see if more food would come, but once it realised there was no more, it began ascending back into the canopy. As the branches flittered past, Lloyd wracked his brain trying to think of a way out. His only way to cut himself out, was with his spear but that was pinned against his back at the moment. His only other options were to use one of his skills, electrify would probably just set him on fire and it was probable plasma bolt would do the same.

  Trying to figure out what to do Lloyd looked up searching for a way out, but what he saw instead was a dark omen of what was to come. The silk strand the spider was hanging from was attached to the inside of a silken cocoon full of decaying beasts and their skeletons, this spider wasn’t level 19 for nothing.

  After seeing what awaited him up above Lloyd decided to use his option most likely to work. Channelling in his energy into his right-hand, Lloyd desperately hoped he would be able to cut himself out of the cocoon with the bolt he summoned. The bolt quickly grew to its base size and forced its way through the thick silk he was encapsulated in. As he pushed the bolt around, he was surprised at how easy it was to hack through the cocoon. Looking down at the bolt now that he could manoeuvre his arms properly, it quickly became apparent that this bolt was different.

  Normally when he summoned a plasma bolt it would be the shape of a javelin, a long rod with a sharp point at one end. This time though, it was different, while it was still a straight rod it now had two distinct ends, one of which was sharp like a cleaver. It seemed like his will for the bolt to cut through the silk had actually influenced how the bolt formed, almost making it into a sword. Now that he could move somewhat freely once more Lloyd looked around to find where he was being taken, and what awaited him was just another reason to escape.

  Up above nestled into the branches of one of the titanic trees was the spider’s nest, a grotesque amalgamation of silk, bones, and its decaying prey. Seeing the grisly future of staying with the spider Lloyd looked for a route of escape, looking around there were a few branches he might be able to jump to, but he currently had a more pressing issue. The bolt he had summoned to cut himself free was now rapidly decaying and would soon implode if not disposed of.

  With a ticking time bomb in his hands Lloyd looked for a target, he could just drop it but that would make the spider look down and see he was freed from his bonds. His other options were a random branch or the nest, but both would likely agitate or enrage his captor. Now only having seconds before the bolt destabilised Lloyd made a dangerous gambit, pulling on his cocoon and screaming while grabbing onto the spider’s leg he desperately tried to get its attention. Feeling the attempted escape down below the spider whipped its head down to see the problem, what it saw was not an escapee, but rather a bolt of lightning ripping through the air towards it.

  Unfortunately, the bolt didn’t manage to kill the spider, but most of its eyes were turned into a vile yellow sludge by the unexpected attack. After losing half its head in an instant the spider let out an ear piercing shriek and started swinging around helplessly. As the spider swung back and forth madly from the web, Lloyd took a chance and leaped for the nearest branch.

  Lloyd just barely managed to grab onto the branch, sinking his fingers into the bark and dragging his body up with heaving breaths. Pulling himself to his feet Lloyd started backing away down the massive tree branch. In its rage the spider started thrashing wildly trying to hit its assailant. Looking closer, while the spider’s swings were by no means accurate, they didn’t seem to be random. It looked like it could still see, in fact it seemed that the spider still had an eye or two intact even after his attack.

  Realising he might not be out of the woods just yet, Lloyd crouched down and hid behind a thick wall of foliage. Unfortunately for Lloyd, the spider didn’t need to find him to harm him. In its frenzied rage, the spider attacked anywhere it suspected him to be, while doing this it continuously slammed into the branch he was hiding on. Each collision caused bark and splinters to go flying out across the forest, unfortunately the spider didn’t move on.

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  The branch became weaker, and weaker, gradually leaning down towards the ground. As his time was running out Lloyd tried to decide what to do until his thought process was interrupted by a mighty CRACK. The branch he was on finally couldn’t take it anymore and was now having its fibres ripped apart by its own weight, with his mind made up for him Lloyd bolted along the branch towards the main trunk.

  The distance was closed in moments thanks to Lloyds superhuman stats and a second later he leapt across the tear in the branch. Lloyd was almost overrun with confidence at escaping the collapse of the branch, and his mind was distracted to the point that he forgot about his most immediate threat. In his hubris Lloyd stopped paying attention just long enough for him to receive a devastating swing to his midriff. The swing in question came from an enraged spider who had just found itself a target.

  Lloyd almost passed out then and there from the impact alone, but he was shaken awake by the realisation that he was currently flying through the air hundreds of metres above the forest floor. As he soared through the dense canopy of the forest Lloyd wildly flailed his arms around trying to grab hold of something, anything, to halt his fall. As the foliage rushed past Lloyd was quickly running out of time before he reached the ground.

  In a hasty ploy to survive the fall, Lloyd interlocked his fingers and began channelling an electrify. Instantly the electricity began crackling and sparking with nowhere to exit into the atmosphere, as the energy became denser and more erratic, blobs of congealed plasma began spitting out of his hands scalding him violently. When the energy was about to reach critical mass Lloyd pushed the ball of energy forward, the following explosion launched Lloyd back with almost as much force as the spider had exhibited earlier.

  Flying back up Lloyd finally got the chance he needed, as a massive vine came into his reach. Grabbing onto the vine, Lloyd dug his hands into the dense fibres, holding on with all his might. Sliding down the vine, Lloyds fingers began to bleed, his nails peeled back, his body shredded by his momentum.

  Finaly slowing down Lloyd could feel his teeth chipping as he gritted his teeth, restraining the urge to scream at the top of his lungs in pain. For a few minutes Lloyd just sat there, thinking, thinking just how close he had been to dying. Had he reacted just a second later he would be a red smear on the forest floor, the chances that he had blasted himself away from the ground at that time, in that direction were so slim, and the chances he hadn’t so large. And the worst part… had he died no one would have known.

  As Lloyd slowly descended the vine his situation began to truly sink in, this island was both a blessing and a curse. For one, it gave him freedom like he’d never known before, freedom to do whatever he wanted, and the power to accomplish those desires. But at the same time, he was now more alone than ever before. It wasn’t like in the old world where you could keep searching and just hope to find someone, he was the only person on this island and there were no ifs or buts. He had been assured of this by a being able to influence a whole universe, this was simply an unfathomable scale of power, and he had no right to question it.

  This was doubly true considering that if he ever wanted to leave this island, he would have to conquer this island and its challenges all by himself. He couldn’t rely on the power of collaboration that had allowed humans to take over the planet. he had to survive and thrive based on his own talents alone, and if he was going to be killed by an oversized spider, did he really deserve this freedom?

  Lloyd was now faced with two choices, to be met with a challenge too great, and be deemed inadequate by the system. Or overcome this task and prove his worth. Prove he wasn’t to be discarded without a second thought, prove he wasn't to be overlooked, prove he was enough. Enough to overcome this challenge, and all those that followed. He needed to get stronger.

  Reaching the base of the vine, Lloyd set out with a newfound vigour his wounds that were once irreparable now fading with speed visible to the naked eye. The once blinding pain was disregarded as it didn’t represent a negative anymore, only restoration. Ready for whatever this forest had to throw at him Lloyd closed his eyes and listened for a target.

  Somewhere nearby heavy footsteps plodded through a rocky stream, and with that he set out. Lloyd tore across the forest floor weaving between roots, branches, and titanic ferns, in a silent hunt for his prey. Bursting through a wall of man sized ferns Lloyd’s target came into view, and he shot forward with deadly speed.

  The creature that Lloyd was currently targeting appeared to be a giant mole which despite being blind, seemed to be doing quite well for itself based on the thick scars permeating its body. When Lloyd came within a few metres of the mole its feelers started twitching, and it whipped its head around as a sheet of rock shot out of the ground between them.

  Flooding his arm with energy, Lloyd swung his spear forward blasting through the rock. Not expecting such aggressive retaliation, the mole wasn’t yet prepared and only mustered a heavy punch as a defence. Weaving below the moles fist, Lloyd gripped onto the back of its forelimb and swung himself onto its back using the moles stolen momentum.

  Lloyd gripped onto the moles fur, as the beast shook its whole body trying to get him off. Pushing onward, Lloyd positioned himself near the top of its spine where its heart should be. Waiting for the mole to calm down, Lloyd started throwing weak punches and stabs to give it the false hope that he was weak offensively. As the mole started to ease up and slow down Lloyd lunged forward and made his move.

  Leaping into the air Lloyds mana surged through his veins as a bolt of pure plasma burst into being in his hands, and lightning arced up his arms. As Lloyd fell back down to his target, the mole was spasming in the dirt, its legs twitched like it wanted to run but was unable to. Lloyd landed with a thud and the bolt cut into the mole like it was butter, a fountain of blood shooting up into his face told him the moles heart had been punctured.

  The corpse of the mole began to spasm and shake as electricity coursed through its limbs, in a rush to avoid getting crushed Lloyd channelled mana into his legs. Mana coursed through his veins as per usual, yet something felt off, the mana was unresponsive and refused to obey him. Energy ran through his veins like a rampaging bull, and it wasn’t planning on stopping, his heart kept pumping mana into his blood with no destination. If he didn’t do something soon, he would turn into a walking bomb, his only option was to stop it at the source.

  A thin barrier of mana sprang up in one of his arteries and the mana stopped flowing, for a moment Lloyd was ecstatic but his vision blacking out changed his mood right around. Lloyd was awoken by a throbbing headache, feeling totally disorientated. What the hell had just happened? Also, what had made him pass out? He remembered fighting a giant mole, then he’d tried to run only to have his mana start acting up.

  Trying to remember what he’d done to fix his mana circulation Lloyd turned his mind inwards, only to see his deluded “solution”. With one of his arteries blocked Lloyds heart was slowly swelling like a blocked hose, hastily disintegrating the barrier he felt his insides torn up as he absorbed the hostile energies. Despite the pain Lloyd could only stare in disbelief, what the hell had he been thinking? He was meant to think outside the box, but his deluded self had set the box on fire then tried to put it out with gasoline.

  Unsure what had actually caused the mana to be unresponsive, Lloyd opened his status screen looking for clues, being met with a good surprise for once. It seemed that he had unlocked another skill selection.

  You have slain a Rock mole -lvl 11

  Experience gained, + 60 credits.

  status

  Name: Lloyd Tethys

  Race: Human (F) – lvl 5

  Class: lightning mage – lvl 11

  Health points (HP) 67/192

  Mana points (MP) 3/270

  Stamina points (SP) 54/127

  Stats

  Strength – 48

  Agility – 48

  Endurance – 31

  Toughness – 22

  Vitality – 57

  Perception – 51

  Intelligence – 88

  Wisdom – 65

  Willpower – 54

  Free points – 0

  This quick overview of his stats brought Lloyd two new revelations. The first being that the redundant mana had been induced by using all of his mana during the battle and then trying to pull more from an empty reserve. Lloyd made a mental note to avoid repeating this as it could easily get him killed in a less advantageous scenario, where his foe was still alive.

  Aside from the reason for his mana acting up, Lloyd was discovering something else as he hunted stronger and stronger foes. The messages he got for killing something came with three parts, the name and level of the enemy, the words ‘experience gained’, and a varying amount of ‘credits’ gained. The first two parts were pretty self-explanatory, just being you killed this, and you got experience you’ll level up soon, and what you killed. But the third part, these “credits” gave no information as to what they were or what they did, regardless of what they were a discrepancy was beginning to show.

  Up until now the number of credits he’d gained per kill increased by five per level of the enemy, but now that he was fighting level ten and above enemies, he got ten credits per level. While this was all interesting, it still didn’t matter since he had no practical use for them. On the other hand, what did matter was his new level ten skill selection, as from what he’d seen the second selection gave a much larger power boost than the first. For example, the alpha compy had a basic skill from level five to boost its poisons potency, but that was nothing compared to the toxic sigil it could summon with its second skill.

  The rock mole likely also had two high calibre skills in its arsenal being a level fifteen but was only able to utilise its shitty level five one because of his ambush. If he’d given the mole the time to channel one of its good skills Lloyd would likely be dead or at least grievously wounded. With this in mind, Lloyd had high expectations for what skills awaited him.

  Looking out at the clearing from deep within some titanic tree roots Lloyd felt that he would be safe even if a strong beast came to investigate the dead mole. Closing his eyes, Lloyd began circulating mana to recuperate as he began to analyse his new skill choices.

  [Ambush (Inferior)] – the strongest strike is an unexpected one, meld into the scenery striking when they least expect it. If you land a strike without your enemy being aware of you, your first hit will do increased damage.

  [Mana bolt (Inferior)] – summon a sharp bolt of condensed mana from your palm across a short distance. A cheap but effective attack giving your enemies another target to dodge.

  [Arcane armaments (Common)] – summon disposable arcane weaponry at a whim, have no fear of your weapon being broken or lost as you have a replacement with nought but a thought. Picture a weapon and channel mana into the mental blueprint then watch it appear before you.

  [Mana pulse (Common)] – release a pulse of destructive mana from within to destroy and disorient your foes. As the pulse spreads from its source, it relentlessly searches for hostile mana constructs to infect and dismantle, watch the parasite infect the energy of your adversaries.

  [Arcane marble (Uncommon)] – release arcane destruction upon your foes as you summon a marble of purest destructive mana amidst the battle detonating it leaving behind the smoking remains of your enemies. Slowly channel energy into the marble on the sidelines, then re-enter the fray to release devastation on your adversaries ranks.

  Looking over his new skill choices while he couldn’t complain about the rarities, seeing as he had two commons and an uncommon at level ten, he certainly wasn’t overjoyed. All of his new skill options seemed to follow a similar trend. They were all things he’d been doing without skills, the first was just better for if he wanted to ambush his enemies as implied by the name. the second skill was likely derived from the tiny mana sphere he’d made in the cave, the third skill and the first common one was probably influenced by the sharpened plasma bolt he’d used to escape the spider.

  The fourth choice was actually pretty decent and was able to replicate the pulse he’d released to destroy the compy apparitions, but he could do it without a skill removing a large amount of credibility. The fifth and only uncommon choice however was just a shittier version of the marble that had blown the alpha compy’s head off. The main reason it was worse than what he could do was that it took a long time to charge while his homemade solution just needed him to release a surge of mana into his veins.

  Realising these skills were all pretty much useless, Lloyd was extremely disappointed as it meant that he wouldn’t be receiving the large power boost that his enemies did. Aside the negative feeling that the high rarity skills were actually shit this did actually pose a threat to his wellbeing, as he would be at a disadvantage to foes of a similar level to him. With this in mind Lloyd tried to pick the skill that would best bolster his combat abilities, so with great reluctance Lloyd selected ambush.

  Ultimately while having higher rarity skills was nice Lloyd had to forego vanity and choose what would keep him alive. While some of the other skills might have been strong, they were just compromises for his freestyle attacks that were less effort for a worse result. On the other hand, ambush was great for the method he currently employed to hunt the denizens of the forest. A damage boosted surprise attack could change a fight from him having a slight advantage to him instantly crippling his foe, giving him an easy kill.