[Dark deep rock carapace (Red) Lv 15- A crude armor made from the remains of dark mien spiders, treated with dark magics so it’d retain flexibility and allow for the reinforced rock exterior to remain mobile. In the end it is a creative and effective, if offensive, piece of equipment made by a complete amateur in his most desperate times.

+4 Endurance. +3 Vitality. -2 Strenght. -1 Agility.

Dark mien: As it is made from the remains of their relatives, dark mien spiders will recognize it, being more likely to be enraged or terrified of it’s visage.

Carapace: Due to the way it was crafted, this heavy armor offers a lot less restrictions to dexterity.]

He was a bit surprised when the system had given him the description after asking for him to name it, because apparently that’s how these things worked, but considering this had both been something he did while figuring out the spells and also his first attempt at making anything in his life, school projects notwithstanding, it seemed pretty good to him.

Maybe he should also try and make a short hammer and shield for himself since he was going to try and train his murder healing. What could go wrong with so fucking many carapaces laying around and more and more stone literally growing from the walls after he sheered them off.

It’d taken several new spells and plenty of destroyed materials, but the pile of things he could use simply didn’t seem to decrease substantially, though it had indeed been a fucking bother to make more and more compressed stone to keep shoving into the armor.

It had opened the paths he wanted however, and now he had skills that would help with making things despite his coarse knowledge on how to actually do what he envisioned.

[Congratulations! You have completed the Basic crafter path (20/20)! +2 Endurance. +2 strenght. +1 to a random stat on a created item.

Congratulations! You have completed the Basic fitness path (10/10)! +4 physical stat points. Fitness grows slightly more for each level.

Congratulations! You have completed the Monster eater path (40/40)! +10 Vitality. Increased nutrient intake from food. Slightly increases bonuses gained from eating any dish.

Congratulations! You have completed the Fantastical material specialist path (150/150)! +5 Strength, Agility and Control. Increased material influence over the final product.

Congratulations! You have completed the Earth mage path (50/50)! +5 Intelligence and Willpower. Earth affinity becomes Improved earth affinity (O). Skill levels retained.]

“Actually more than I had expected really.” He shrugged. The materials were ready, he just needed to position everything in place, mold the rock around the carapace while leaving the least amount of extra space when he had to put the two materials together, layer more of the carapace in the joints instead of the rock, cover them with folds and spikes, leave space for the eyes, layer several legs encased in stone as the chest piece to better absorb shock...

[Dark deep rock carapace (Orange) Lv 21- A crude armor made from the remains of dark mien spiders, treated with dark magics so it’d retain flexibility and allow for the reinforced rock exterior to remain mobile. In the end it is a creative and effective, if scary, piece of equipment made by a new crafter while in his most desperate times.

+7 Endurance. +6 Vitality. -1 Strenght. -1 Agility.

Talented magical touch I: Made with spells instead of a forge, this armor has gained a few magical properties. +1 to Wisdom and Willpower.

Dark mien: As it is made from the remains of their relatives, dark mien spiders will recognize it, being more likely to be enraged or terrified of it’s visage.

Carapace: Due to the way it was crafted, this heavy armor offers a lot less restrictions to dexterity.]

“I can work with this.” Smiled Aki, ignoring that apparently the grading system was based on color wavelength. He already had to think and adjust the armor a bunch to actually put it on. He had to get used to the added stats and moving inside of it, so….

[You have developed the skill Equip Lv 1]

“Shit.” His smile immediately turned into a frown as he checked the skill’s effect.

[Equip Lv 1: You can equip and benefit from items that have up to the skill’s level. Some secondary effects may require a higher skill level. Using higher level equipment will increase the skill level.]

“At least there’s no bullshit about reducing the defence or some shit.” He grumbled before sighing. He now needed to make that shield and hammer while wearing the armor for a completely different reason.

He’d reinforce that stone into a small hammer to the fucking limit of his ability if it was what it took, even if the shield was much easier and simpler since the carapace actually helped with diverting force so it was ussed as a covering for the most condenced stone slab he could make.

It took hours of his full concentration but he made them, though the hammer was not actually considered an item he’d crafted, more of a strange shaped material, because apparently one of his mental skills already worked as something that could analyze his surroundings so as to have the system give him a description, though it wasn’t like he’d had anything else to identify.

Before actually taking off he gave the equipment a little test, dancing around with what he thought were good enough movements to use the shield and hammer and unlocking their respective skill.

There was only so much goofing around to be done however, so he took the stone bottles he'd made and filled them with water from the pool, as then finally, he stepped outside the safe zone to look into killing directly.

First there was nothing, he didn’t dare make a ruckus like before, and leaving a trap to be activated later was a waste of time as he did not know how long he’d spend in this expedition.

After some time though, he found a couple of spiders, immediately killing them before they could retaliate, not that they were even past level 10.

Strangely enough, it was only four encounters later that he even had to defend against an attack. In which occasion he most definitely did not accidentally fall backwards when dodging and ended up needing to shoot a spider from point blank with a spell since it was trying to eat his face, no that certainly didn't happen.

In all seriousness, he did not let that happen again, or at least tried to, because after some time of killing spiders, something suddenly penetrated his armour, biting his neck from behind even as he staggered from the added weight.

Taking the spider by the anus, or whatever the slightly protruding part used to aim secretions from the posterior was called, he swung it out of his back after dropping his hammer, sending a blast of flames from his shield as he channeled a spell for the first time since leaving the safe zone with the armour and setting most arachnids in front of him on fire.

The hunter was surprised and then stunned, not having enough time to recover as an armoured and spiked boot came down on to it's head, a flaming heavy kick maintaining it stunned as any other spiders in the vicinity popped like corn flakes in a pressure cooker.

As he stomped again, Aki couldn't help but note that despite the bloodied holes on his back and neck he was having great fun. He'd always known he was a violent person, but this was the first time he was mildly conscious of his emotions while slaughtering his enemies.

His reinforced stomp hit rock instead of carapace.

Looking down, he could barely determine the hiding shape in the badly illuminated corridor. Still, he could see it's magic in well enough definition, so that was enough to shoot it during it's dash for space, later snaring it in rocks if even to reduce it's momentum.

Just like that, a cat and mouse game began.

Every time the thing stopped because of reinforcements or exhaustion, it was soon besieged by flames, a flying hammer and more dying spiders under Aki's boots, impaled by spikes of earth, burned to a crisp or just plain smashed between a hammer and a wall.

Eventually, the level forty five pony sized spider died with a caved in and burned skull. After reducing his HP enough that the system decided to show him the way, Aki quickly came back to the safe zone, hauling a couple more spiders he caught on the way for a quick snack. He just needed to process the corpse and he’d be able to shove the thing into his base without much worry about it disappearing.

And so he did, separating the higher leveled specimen in it’s own place and deciding on putting it’s fangs like they were spikes for his hammer, which was as easy as doing a bit of manipulation, hardening the fangs and voila, the weapon was now a proper item in the eyes of the system.

He only got only level in weapon crafting for that though.

Going back to it though, he didn't stop until he had slain and retrieved five more, calling it a day and deciding to actually give into sleep.

Wait. How long had he spent without sleep again?

[Sleep resistance is now level 31

Psychopath (Y) is now level 42]

*Pluok*

…..

After waking up, Aki felt refreshed and ready to punch shit on the face.

Unfortunately, that was out of the table.

What had felt like some two days plus some running in the tunnels might have been something more like two months, though he was more inclined to believe something along the lines of two weeks.

In part because of his sleep resistance's level and in part because this was indeed the first time that Psychopath had leveled since he last remembered, the notifications for the rest had simply been ignored, not erased or anything.

Mostly it was the regeneration enhancement from the safe zone deactivating because he was full, but there were also plenty of warnings about starvation and lack of sleep causing damage to his body.

The thought that he’d been able to mostly ignore pain was not that bad really, but ignoring damage was a whole other story. One that made him rather angry at everything, including the skill in question. It needed to be tamed.

Fortunately, his last outing had unlocked plenty of new paths. One of them seemed particularly suspicious though.

[Congratulations! You have completed the Journeyman path (125/125)! +5 physical stat points and mental stat points. +15 free stat points. +1 Free stat point per level. +20% experience gained.+15% Skill growth.]

And for whatever reason that unlocked a path that seemed to be the missing link between Newbie and Journeyman.

[Congratulations! You have completed the Trainee path (25/25)! +10 free stat points. +1 Free stat point per level. +15% experience gained. Skill acquisition is 10 % easier. +10% Skill growth.]

If he was reading the flavor text correctly, then he should have unlocked the later path after acquiring a hundred skill points in the tutorial. But since he had never gone to the tutorial… Luckily it seemed that the only requirement for Journeyman was reaching 1k points, so he wasn’t penalised for no reason, but that skill growth percentage could have been put to use ever since he’d entered the safe zone if he’d been able to actually go through with the path.

Either way, it was there now and he was going to be abusing the fact that he was such a fucking good wizard to get tons of spell to milk for points, this just made his task easier.

Let 's see. He already knew that having different skills made a lot of difference with what you’d gain from a path, so perhaps he should make some more before going for the other paths he wanted.

Grinning, Aki dumped his forty one free points into intelligence, leaving it with a score of seventy five and him with such clarity that he realised he'd never felt more awake. This was going to be easy enough.