Oliver could see the nearby divide between the Many Webbed Swamp and what he had named the Twilight Forest. He had previously been wrong about the grandeur of the initial biome so he didn't overestimate his ability to get back to his camp unharmed. If anything, the ambush of the Juvenile Huntsman proved that one wrong step could lead to disaster.
With the spider leg in one hand and his trusty spear in the other, he made his way back into the lush deciduous forest. He took his time and listened very carefully to all the sounds that found their way to him. Sometimes he would hear battles break out in directions and take large detours to avoid them.
His recent level up had fully healed him and increased his health to almost four times the size of when he initially entered the cave. Still, caution was best in this scenario lest he attract another horde of monsters to his location. Maybe a couple more levels would allow him to take care of such riff-raff.
After what felt like an hour of sneaking bush to bush and a few close calls with some larger mammalian creatures, he finally saw the dim light of a campfire. Sure enough, a few more steps in that direction and his sleeping platform popped up into view. The encampment was a welcome sight.
He neared the waist-high stone wall and stopped as he saw a small shadow hunched over his pile of slain Devourer Multipods he had hunted earlier in the night. It seemed to be eating the crabs, like some starving thief!
"Hey!" Oliver's voice was gruff from not speaking for close to a week and a half. It came out low and spiked with hints of violence, which the creature picked up on when it turned around stunned.
Bizarrely enough, this little creature was not much bigger than the devourer Multipods it was feeding on. It resembled a normal house cat, except its fur was pitch black and spotted with purple dots like a tiny leopard. It stared back at Oliver with large, glowing, yellow eyes. A piece of crab guts hung limply from the side of its mouth.
"Wait a second! You were looking at me earlier!" Oliver recalled the pair of glowing eyes and small paw prints he had followed earlier. The exact ones that had given him the idea to go further into the woods and eventually meet all the friendly spiders. Seems like this little leopard cat had made it a habit to spy on him while he was in camp and to steal from his pantry.
Before Oliver could climb the wall or speak again, the cat jumped onto the pile of crab corpses and started to flicker in a bizarre way. Oliver ducked down in case this was a type of attack, he hoped the stone barrier he had built would hold up.
After a few seconds of nothing, Oliver popped his head up only to see the cat had completely vanished. It also didn't leave empty handed, the entire pile of crabs had disappeared as well. Had he seriously gotten robbed by a house cat?
Oliver scaled his wall, mumbling curses under his breath. He propped up the spear and the spider leg on his sleeping platform and dumped the ether crystals on the platform itself. The jewels tumbled out and emitted a faint blue glow, almost as if they were little night lights.
He sat down next to them and took a breather, he was going to have to plan his tactics better if he was going to survive in this world. He was not too worried about the feline intruder as it seemed harmless enough, even though it had a wicked teleportation power.
He would most likely have to restore his stock of crabs before he went back to the sunny version of the cave, he did not want to eat more Frogfish than he had to. This goal seemed like the best immediate goal to work on.
He would also have to craft a new stone hatchet as his last one lay broken in the swamp. However, Oliver had a better use for his time by directly upgrading his most used tool.
Kicking himself into gear, he got up from the sleeping platform and grabbed the spider's leg. First things first, he would separate the end spike from the bottom leg joint. Using the very careful method of bashing the connective tissue with a sharp rock that was lying around, both components were separated from each other.
Using the Swiss multi-tool, he cut out any flesh or muscles that clung to the inside of the exoskeleton spike. This was quick work as the spike was mostly solid chitin and only a little flesh was found in the hollow inside.
He whittled down his spear and noticed that the wood had deformed in a couple places due to his heavy bashing. He would most likely have to be on the look-out for stronger materials if creatures were also becoming more difficult. He added it to the mental to do list he was preparing.
With a few tests and some extra whittling here and there, Oliver slid his spear into the hollow part of the spider leg spike. He used some of the paracord he had lying around from his survival kit and tied the two pieces together as solid as he could. For the moment it would hold as he wound the highly tensile cord very tightly around the shaft and the end point of the spike, but he would need a more permanent way of attaching them later.
[Wooden Spear upgraded to Juvenile Huntsman Spear.]
[Material: Mare's Death Bush + Level 11 Juvenile Huntsman Front Claw.]
[Quality: Uncommon -> Uncommon+]
Feeling accomplished as the floating text confirmed his work was done, Oliver examined his creation. The spear still had the simple wooden shaft he had been using for a while but was now tipped with a wicked looking spike. Overall, it looked like some nerd's home-brew attempt at a role-playing weapon, but it must pack some serious punch if it caused the quality to go up a notch.
Oliver picked up the spear and swung it around. The spear felt lighter than it did prior the attachment of the spider part. He felt his movements grow more fluid and could feel extra force when he stabbed it in the air. Plus, he felt walking around with a weapon made from an animal part brought some child-like glee to his heart. Almost as if he was still a child and he was pretending to be in a life or death situation.
A thought occurred to him and he looked at the two glowing crystals that lay on his bed. If material directly influenced the quality of equipment, would it not be benefited from adding this crystal to it somewhere. The crystal's text was blue, if video games had taught Oliver anything, that was a sure sign that this material was of a superior quality.
Picking up a clump of crystals and the newly upgraded spear in his other hand, he thought about how to combine the two. He thought about a counter-weight at the end of the spear but this idea was scrapped as it would put the weapon off balance. The same could be said about adding weight to the head of the spear, too heavy in front would only benefit his opponents. There was no proper way to combine both items, which was a frustrating realization to come to.
Oliver felt there was some sort of possibility to further improve his equipment but it was hidden behind some mental fog in the back of his mind. Out of pure curiosity, he bumped the two two items in his hands together. Maybe they would merge together magically.
[Host has not unlocked the proper skill to process Ether.]
The words popped up in his field of view in a bright orange. The system seemed to help him in certain situations, most likely to keep him from getting stuck in a single spot for too long. The colour code was also a nice touch that could warn him of dangerous areas or actions that were useless. Seems like this orange text was a combination of danger and pointless, maybe if he played around with Ether Crystals too much he might hurt himself? He cautiously put the crystal back on the bed.
Oliver picked up his spear and decided to tackle the easiest problem he currently had; his lack of food. Shortly after stoking the campfire and hopping over the stone wall, Oliver spotted a scuttling Devourer Multipod near the shore of the lake. His stealth and sense had greatly advanced since he had last fought one of these creatures, he easily sneaked right next to the crab without being detected.
In a swift motion Oliver jabbed his newly improved spear at the crab's outer shell to test the difference in strength. The crab had felt the difference in pressure but was too late to react as the tip of the spider leg struck it directly on the side. Normally, this would send both the crab and spear in opposite directions. In this case, the spider was another realm of creature above this simple multipod. The shell was pierced through as if shot by a bullet. The multipod froze as its internal organs were pierced instantly by the strike.
It began to crawl away feebly as it yanked itself off the spear tip. It got a few steps further before collapsing and bleeding out.
[Level 1 Devourer Multipod slain. 40 experience acquired.]
[??? unlocked: 5/100 progress.]
Seems like these low level creatures were no match for his Huntsman Spear. However, Oliver was frowning when he saw an additional line of text appear in his vision. While the actual unlock was hidden behind some kind of secret he could see he had already made some progress towards the goal.
Oliver surmised that the count had most likely gone up when he had slain this crab. This would mean he had 95 kills left, which would not only unlock whatever this hidden secret was but also provide him with massive amounts of experience and level up his spear mastery. He only needed to find a bunch of these Devourer Multipods.
With a slight smirk, Oliver had the perfect way to attract a whole truckload of the creepy, shelled creatures. He spun over the recently slain multipod and stomped his boot into the softer underbelly. The underside collapsed in a gush of guts and broken shell, it was quite a disgusting sight to see. But, it smelled much stronger now that the entire viscera of this creature was exposed.
He grabbed hold of a leg and tossed the gore covered corpse to the nearby pond shore, making sure it was deep enough so that the water would circulate the smell of the bodily fluids. A short wait of 15 seconds was required before dozens of different shaped Multipods were surfacing from the depths of the pond.
Oliver stepped over the corpse and held his spear tightly, waiting for the first creature to get within range. The first taker was a rather small crab that seemed to be faster than the others. It jumped at Oliver's midsection trying to burrow into his stomach, sadly, it was much slower than its prey.
The creature was fluidly impaled and then shoveled backward onto the nearby grass. The system confirmed the creature was dead as Oliver deftly struck another multipod that remained in the water and was attempting a stealth approach towards the dead corpse. The strike was imperfect and glanced off at a bizarre angle, it barely damaged the shell except for a white streak that went across the top.
The multipod was shaken up from the strike and gave up its stealth strategy, it rushed as fast as it could towards one of Oliver's legs. Oliver used the momentum of his previously failed strike to bat a flying crab far into the center of the lake. This did not kill the creature but most likely put it out of commission. He combined this strike with an overhead bash onto the rushing multipod and struck it directly on the top of its domed carapace. It flattened out all its legs underneath it and was sunk a few inches into the mud. To ensure it wouldn't get up again, Oliver stabbed the tip of his spear through the top of the shell, this time penetrating and ending the multipod's life.
Oliver stared out at the other shells that began poking out of the water and grinned to himself. This was easy experience.