The sky was painted in tame yellows and reds indicating that the sun was setting. Soon the overwhelming darkness will decent on the eerie jungle. Even if this was The Dreaded Place there was little to worry about. Or was it?

The shadows of the IronOak grew taller and taller with each passing minute until the whole place was cast in to darkness. The sun was gone over the horizon leaving only a red outline in the sky as a reminder; which will be gone soon as well.

There were no sounds or songs of the animals, not even a rustle of leaves. Silence reigned supreme. Animus and its animated life had no place in this vast jungle. That would be true if not for one odd village; it was an aberration defining all odds.

A shadow loomed between the shadows, he too was an oddity in this otherwise ‘sterile’ place; he was alive. He was dressed in a black cloak which allowed him to perfectly meld with the night. Even though this place was devoid of animals, it wasn’t devoid of danger so he moved quietly unwilling to disturb the overbearing silence.

He was on a mission of utmost importance. He was here to investigate the rumours, to dispel the worries of the seers. The jungle has been sleeping for hundreds of years, and The Dreaded Place was just that – a spooky title. However, that was not so aeons past; the title was rightfully earned. There was a prophecy almost forgotten and a warning still alive: Do not disturb the jungle or it will spawn an evil of unimaginable proportion.

That was what they all feared, to disturb the jungle. Despite the warnings, he still had to investigate. So he made himself as small as possible and moved as quietly as his skill allowed. Not to be seen, not to be heard, smelt or even felt; his presence was null.

He moved towards the chaotic energy he could feel on his skin, which only grew in strength with time, he followed it like a compass. He knew where to go, he already knew that he would find something… something dreadful. He travelled from one tree shadow to the other being careful with his steps and motions.

Soon he observed a change. Something that should not exist, a thing that should not be done for it was forbidden.

He almost made a sound purely out of terror. What should be there was no longer there. A large chunk of the jungle was simply cleared. Who would dare to disturb this place? And so deep within the jungle. It all made no sense.

Luckily some of the trees still stood, so he was able to move deeper into the clearing. Then, in the distance, he noticed even more changes. He had almost gasped in shock again. There were neat rows of thick blue webs in the distance. Hundreds and hundreds of webs dropped down from Iron Oaks. The strings of these webs there thick as ropes, and tangled in these webs there was an unfamiliar plant.

Neither the webs nor that strange plant had a place in the jungle. Both were unnatural and previously unseen.

Then he noticed something, at which point he had even expected it, there was a creature darting between the blue webs. He observed the creature feeling his own hands begin to tremble. The monster was very much like an insect it had an obsidian carapace, six spindly legs and four yellow eyes, but it was neither a spider nor an ant. A mishmash of both perhaps. What disturbed him the most however was that the monster here wore clothes. At that sight, his mind almost went blank.

Jungle spawning monsters was expected, but monsters wearing clothes implied truly dreadful things.

The elders can do with this information whatever they want. He had seen enough, enough for the rest of his dear life. He moved quickly with urgency to leave the clearing and the nest of monsters, to report about the impending doom. But even then it will take him weeks to return. In his mind, he knew it was already too late to do anything about it.

…

The self-proclaimed King of Spiders was deliberating things of high importance.

It turned out that only by designing a new set of clothes he could get Crafting +50exp, but replicating the design gave only +10. That, however, didn’t mean that he didn’t level up, by the time he finished the last set of clothes he was met with a message:

[Congratulations! You have reached Crafting lvl .1]

Yeah, it was only a level 1. There was still so much to go. But even level one came with a bonus.

[Requirements have been met. Hidden perk unlocked.]

[Perk Superior Design obtained.]

If only it went further and explained what it did…

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“I should craft something to see what it does.” He rubbed his chin in thought for a while. “Something for myself. Yes! I can’t be the King and be out fashioned by my people. Something regal then.” He decided.

And thus he spends hours crafting meticulously. The tools he had to use were primitive, the materials simple but even then he produced something that should be impossible.

[You have crafted royal robes of superior quality. Crafting +100exp.]

“Superior? +100? Wow!” Very much wow indeed.

He turned the robe in his hands appraising his hard work. It was blue like the rest of his creations, he made it long and slightly loose, and the sleeves were also long and able to cover his hands completely if he let it hang free. He fastened it to his body using a woven tape sash. By the way, it was a hooded robe, not too dissimilar from a robe medieval monks and sages would wear.

In reality, except for the vivid blue colour, it was quite plain. He already knew where improvements could be made. It was in texture and design. The cloth could be woven in different ways to produce a patterned design. He will teach his weavers a few new ways how to weave the cloth.

He equipped his robes for the first time.

[Royal Robes: +10MP.]

“Ten MP? As in mana points?” He wondered.

Yet again the bonus was odd. He wondered why exactly it gave 10mp and not some other bonus.

“Is it because this is a robe?”

His guess was as good as anyone else’s.

…

Mana points meant that there is magic and hence a spell system in this world, however:

“Fireball.”, “Smite.”, “Heal”, “…” He tried various incantations but nothing worked.

“I guess it’s not meant to be.” He wasn’t going to become a mage. Not yet. “It’s fine. I don’t need it.” He reassured himself.

His hands were full of various lesser tasks. One of which was building an extra storage room for all the fruit. Then he was building and doing maintenance he would get Building exp, but the points took forever to accumulate. At this pace, it will take forever to achieve a single level.

“Meh.” He shrugged not too bothered about the lack of progress. “I am fine being a farmer and a crafter. Too many jobs would only distract me from what is important.”

Making sure his kingdom prospered was what mattered the most.

He finished assembling the building using split planks of ImpostorTree. The planks were held together using ropes. Of course, he was aware that various wood joining techniques existed but he didn’t know any of those.

He finished laying dried leaves for the roof and then shook his robes to dust them off. The Dirt Resistance the blue dye gave was a wonderful thing. His clothes barely needed any cleaning.

Then he went to maintain the egg hatchery.

“It, can’t be.” It was full of eggs. “But…” He peaked his head outside just to make sure. “They are still alive.”

Previously his workers would die straight after laying the eggs, but apparently not this time.

“So the village expands once again. More exp for me!” He celebrated.

This of course implied that he will need to uphold the first law.

“If only they could craft their own clothes.” He wished absentmindedly.

In no time at all the eggs began to hatch, and as soon as they hatched the hatchlings rushed to their parents. They were keen to carry out their jobs.

It was of no surprise that his six jesters had laid eggs of their own. And now he had 12 jesters on his hands. The troublemakers have multiplied!

“Hey, I can’t have too many freeloaders you know!” He shouted at the six accusingly.

The twelve remained of little use, but there was a small miracle. He had finally gotten his first builders. There were only two of them but the duo were expert helpers. Not only were they able to expertly nest the leaves for the roof, they knew how to tie ropes and make wicker walls. He didn’t even need to prompt them to start the building maintenance.

…

He looked at the buildings he had once erected with his own hands: his sleeping shed, two fruit storages, fibre processing facility, cloth warehouse, and hatchery.

“Yeah… there’s something wrong with my builders.”

That statement wasn’t exactly correct. The builders were magnificent workers, but… The way they did things turned out to be different from the way he did things. All the buildings were still there, however, their shape had drastically changed. The structures used to be rectangular boxes with flat roofs but now they were dome-shaped. They looked like balls half buried in the ground. The walls were constructed using bendy twigs, blue rope and even cloth. The materials were woven in a way to express the webbed pattern. Even the usually square entrance was now spherical.

“A monster den.” That was how it looked. “A spider's nest!”

With all those buildings, the way his beloved creatures were growing TomGrape, and the way his workers looked like there was no denying it. The farm looked undeniably spooky. “There is definitely a theme going on.” A monster spider theme. The only exception was his BlueDust flower fields which spiders avoided.

Having a horror-themed farm didn’t bother him too much. Actually, it kind of looked cool.

With building maintenance out of the list of things he had to do routinely he was able to take a side project. What he was doing now was trying to preserve the TomGrape fruits. With time yellow TomGrape fruits would acquire hard shells, that would already semi-preserve the jelly-like insides. What he wanted to do was to try fermenting the fruit flesh, in other words, he was making wine.

It didn't work at all. Then he extracted the juices from the fruit they turned back to their jelly state and then later rotted without fermenting properly.

It was a failure until he mixed the jelly with sweet petals of BlueDust flowers. The two reacted with each other and the end result was a thick syrup. It wasn’t wine, but it stayed fresh for a very long time.

The first time he gave BlueSyrup to one of his farmers the guy made a funny dance. Obviously, he was very happy with the taste. Later the fellow returned to beg for more syrup. This behaviour was new, the spider creatures never had asked anything of him before so this interaction was welcome. Soon, this guy was eating syrup and only syrup, and later it was joined by his friends. There was a bonus to all of this: the extra sugar made the spiders run everywhere faster and even work harder. However…

“I might have made a mistake. They’re addicted to it!”