After escaping the mountain Tuck travelled cross country. Shaards had the natural beauty that came with an untamed land, but despite similar appearances both the flora and the fauna were alien and aggressive. This wasn't a peaceful land.
Every beast Tuck encountered was hostile, even the herbivores. He witnessed a pack of creatures that resembled hares attacking a six legged green tiger who had snatched one their number, they beat their predator senseless until he dropped the other hare and ran off.
As dangerous as the normal beasts were, the Magical beasts were next level.
Tuck saw bunnies that could harden like statues, in that state they stuck to the ground like magnets, or maybe it was gravity, Tuck wasn’t sure but it made hunting them hard.
There were wolves that looked like living astro-turf, when they lay still it was impossible to tell what was tall grass and what was a hungry pack.
He saw gazelles that moved so quickly that they flickered like a bad signal.
Trees that ate the birds that landed on their branches.
Bushes that exploded silently, shooting out poisonous thorns so their creeping roots could pull in paralysed prey. These and so many more dangers littered the forest.
Then there were the Titan Beasts.
Titan Beasts could control the lesser of their species and they got their name from the ability to grow to enormous size with a corresponding power up. It was as if every pocket monster was secretly a Kaiju sentai villain waiting to enlarge and stomp on his ass.
And stomp they did.
Every day Tuck would seek out at least 1 Titan Beast to battle in an attempt to hone his abilities.
Tuck used every opportunity to experiment with his abilities attempting to master what he could do. Being completely unarmed helped Tuck to get very good, very quickly.
More often than not, Tuck found his ability to flee to be his most useful skill. Being able to disengage any conflict enabled him to avoid panicking, especially since he couldn’t win every confrontation.
As expected most battles with groups didn’t favour him and some one-on-one battles came down to experience, which Tuck was now gaining.
A few days into his Walkabout Tuck came across a surprise, despite it being winter he stumbled into a valley that was in full spring. Tuck’s Spatial awareness detected geothermal activity that caused the conditions to be right for fruit trees to bloom. He had no idea if this was natural to this area but he took the opportunity to collect as many fruits as he could from the valley.
While picking fruits Tuck stepped on a patch of grass that lunged for his neck. He flicked away only to realise that he was now in the middle of a pack of grass wolves. The leader grew massive and howled, power rippled out from it and covered its pack. As the ripple spread the lesser wolves vanished, with only their eyes visible. The Titan wolf had bent light around its pack and they moved to attack Tuck from all angles. A wolf immediately went for Tuck’s hamstring trying to cripple him. Tuck began to heal but was batted about and bitten relentlessly.
Suddenly their prey was gone. All the wolves sniffed about, confused and alert but Tuck was long gone.
Tuck sat in a tall tree overlooking the valley as he disintegrated some rock to heal his wounds. He had been completely out maneuvered. He needed to change his tactics from battle to ambush.
Tuck gathered some large stones, 12 of them, one for each pack member. Tuck dropped the stones from the top of the tree but before they could hit the ground he opened a portal that led back to the top of the tree again. Endlessly falling it didn’t take long for the stones to reach terminal velocity. Tuck then opened the portal directly over the Titan wolf’s head and sent the largest stone through.
The beast died instantly, the other members of the pack barely had time to flinch at the sound of the impact before their lives ended.
Tuck wyrmed his way back into the valley, collecting the wolves and fruit and claiming the wolves den for his own that night. He blocked the cave with a boulder and slept like a baby.
***
Tuck travelled a few more days, dealing with more madness that made Shaards a death trap, before he was surprised by finding another valley in the full bloom of spring. Although he found it an odd coincidence that moving from the first valley to the second valley was almost a straight line pointing at his destination, he decided these valleys must be a natural happening phenomenon and began to refer to them as Valleys of Eden.
As he entered the valley he noticed a Titan Shadow Lynx had taken an interest in him.
Tuck used the time the beast wasted in stalking him to harvest the wheat like plants growing in the valley. When the Lynx finally pounced Tuck flickered to the side and punched it with all his formidable strength.
He had intended to test his physical abilities by using Spatial Awareness to slow down his perception of time. Unfortunately Tuck’s counter attack made the Lynx not want a fair fight. It grew to the size of an elephant before sinking into its own shadow. While Tuck had no proof of what was going on he had read enough funny books to know he was in trouble.
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From its refuge within the shadows the Titan Lynx attacked Tuck relentlessly from every angle. Despite pushing both his Spatial Awareness and Time Slow to their limits and moving like greased lightning Tuck was still put on the back foot.
His physical abilities got more of a workout than he had planned for and as night was falling Tuck finally realised he had a major dilemma, just having shadows made the Titan Shadow Lynx unbeatable, the full dark of the night would make it a god.
Deciding discretion was the better part of valor, Tuck beat a retreat Wyrming away to safety.
‘Being able to disengage is the only reason I’m still alive.’ Tuck reasoned. ‘Trying to go level for level like some Shonen protagonist is dumb.’ He thought as he escaped. ‘Once I’m done with this training I think I’ll go the sniper or the assassin route.’ Tuck concluded, he agreed with the Shadow Lynx’s tactics; fair play was for idiots.
Only after getting miles away from the Shadow Lynx's Valley did Tuck decide to rest for the night. Since leaving the den Tuck had not found another area he felt safe enough to sleep. His enhanced physique allowed him to brave the cold and his disintegration of a few rocks or any beasts he defeated kept him healed and healthy but mental fatigue was setting in. Tuck stopped in the high branches of a tree to consider his next move. In the quiet of dusk he didn’t even know when he drifted off into dreamless sleep.
***
A jolt awakened him, Tuck was in free fall.
His shroud activated automatically, arresting his fall and giving Tuck a chance to figure out his situation.
A troop of Gravity apes leapt about the branches of the tree Tuck had fallen asleep in. They were confused about the creature disappearing.
“One of those fucks kicked me out of the tree!” Tuck fumed.
Angry, ashamed and terrified; Tuck went berserk. Using his new completed fighting style Tuck attacked the entire Troop. Staying within his shroud, Maws snapped at his enemies from all directions. The panicked Gravity apes tried to scatter from their invisible attacker but none escaped.
Despite the perilous encounter Tuck was fortunate none of that troop were Titans. That kind of luck couldn't be depended on.
Tuck spent the next few hours figuring out how to maintain his shroud while unconscious, he would put himself high in the air and try to sleep in his shroud. When he failed the fall would wake him, it felt similar to falling out of bed, he repeated this over and over until he finally succeeded.
Tuck awoke feeling refreshed, shroud sleeping wasn’t as good as a bed but it was much better than nothing. The solid night's sleep released tensions Tuck didn't even know had.
After getting the hang of shroud sleeping Tuck’s paranoia kicked in. He decided for extra safety he would start to position the visor, the part of the shroud he could not close, under a tree branch so it would pass for a crack in the wood.
Having a safe place to sleep would make the Wilds of Shaards more tolerable.
With this Tuck’s travels became much smoother.
***
Tuck returned to the second valley to try and assassinate the Shadow Lynx but it seemed to have moved on. After cleaning out the valley of wheat he did too.
By now Tuck had dozens of encounters with Titan Beasts and thus far he had not achieved victory once. Well at least in a straight up battle. As far as assassinations went he was batting 100. Knowing SoulGems would be valuable, Tuck decided to stock up. He travelled and avoided magical beasts only collecting useful herbs, fruits and hunting Titan Beasts.
Like this Tuck fell into a routine but he was careful not to become lax. He no longer faced the Titan Beasts head on, he deemed himself to have had enough experience, instead he employed assassination tactics.
Over the next few days as he neared the settlement the rate of finding Titan beasts steadily declined, they were obviously smart enough to avoid any area people frequented. Tuck took his usual precautions before going to sleep, climbing into his shroud and placing his visor below a tree branch. He had had enough of roughing it so tomorrow he would enter the settlement.
***
Tuck awoke with the sounds of the forest, he peaked out through his visor but was shocked to see the paws and tail of a familiar massive purple feline hanging down lazily from the branch he was sleeping under.
Tuck’s old sparring partner the Titan Shadow Lynx had followed him.
It had probably been tracking him since their fight. Tuck realised he hadn’t been very stealthy in his travels, going from one Valley of Eden to the next while harvesting whatever he could find of value and fighting any Titan beasts he came across before Wyrming away.
He usually travelled in straight lines too, another mistake to fix.
Since Tuck Wyrmed about so often, the Shadow Lynx had gotten used to Tuck’s scent just ending and did not suspect that Tuck was shrouded and sleeping under the branch it rested on.
Tuck had no doubt that if it had caught him napping he would have never woken up, so he returned the favour.
Three quick Wyrm holes: 1 to remove its brain, 2 removed its heart and the 3rd took the Lynx’s SoulGem, leaving a perfect corpse which Tuck collected.
‘This will make a fantastic fur coat.’ Tuck concluded as he wyrmed to the edge of the forest.
Tuck walked out of the forest although there was still a full day’s march to the city’s wall he wouldn’t use his abilities. There was a clear area between the Forest and the wall that would be a kill zone for whatever ballistics the people of Shaards used. He knew someone would see him before long.
Tuck used the time he was marching to stockpile water, the entire demilitarised zone was a field of snow so he was able to scrape the top into his Maw. Once in there Tuck was able to remove any impurities and soon had over 1000 gallons of pure water saved in his Reservoir.
This was meant for his personal use, even in the more technologically advanced world Tuck had come from clean water was not always available. Tuck also had plans for a luxurious bath, he even had a massive tree trunk in his Reservoir that he would hollow into a bathtub if he couldn’t find one for sale. After his time in the wilds of Shaards Tuck was obsessed with having a bath. It's not that he needed one, Tuck had figured out early on by putting his body into his Maw he could just disintegrate anything that wasn't him including sweat, grime and odour, but that wasn't refreshing. Not like a bath.
Tuck was looking forward to the security and privacy of a room with a locked door, hot water and soap. Once he was able to sell some of the items he had, he would treat himself.
So far Shaards was a hard world and Tuck felt it was making him brittle.