Chapter four C.

I put back on my onesie fully and basked in the warm, soft fuzziness. The cloth felt amazing and had the added benefit of making the armor almost weightless. I leapt lightly through the fields with a bolt of cloth over my shoulder and a smile on my face. The soft fuzziness caressing my body. "This is awesome." I said, a wondrous joy filling me.

"Magical world. No work. No welding, well I'm sure I'll blacksmith at some point but that's fun not work. No more chafing and pinching, and this cloth is almost erotic on my naked skin. Ahhhh."

I made my way quickly back to the river and began following it once more. Lightly leaping from rock to rock and around obstacles. I was moving at a swift jog, the bolt of cloth over my shoulders like a yoke, lifting me instead of weighing me down. The forest and peaceful meadows passed as I glided from the trees to rocks and through the air.

I was free, almost floating as I moved. Without a care in the world, I enjoyed the ease of movement. The child-like wonder of floating almost like a balloon left a stupid grin plastered to my face.

I was being far too heedless in my movements. That's why as I leapt from a rock along the bank, around a tree, and onto a sand bar, I came face to face with a bear.

Well, not face to face, but close enough; what's the real difference between twenty feet (6m) and a bear. Well, bear thing. The bear was a loose general descriptor of a terrifying, large tooth, death chomping machine that was in front of me.

The dappled light dully reflected from the bear thing. The fur on its body was an ancient gray with an ashen glow that almost looked of steel.

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Its head whipped out of the stream and soft glowing red eyes locked on to me in a flash of shocked rage. With a low rumbling growl, it turned and charged at me within a second. I was caught completely off guard. Surprised by the size of the beast, its spiked tail. Why did a bear need a spiked tail?

The beast moved with a fluid grace belied by its size. The space between us was far too small to give me but a few bare seconds to react. On earth, I'd be dead or mauled close to it. As adrenalin poured into my body, the new knowledge of magic I had gained screamed at me to fight. There was no running; there was no time.

Panicking, I poured 50 points of mana into the first spell I could think of [stone spike]. The mana rushed from my body, and with a crack like lightning-splitting stone, what I had instinctually envisioned tore from the ground. A field of glass spikes erupted from the sand in between the large beast and me.

I don't know what I expected to have happen. Maybe give me a few more moments to make my escape, or, or something. The glittering field of glass spikes that now covered most of the sand bar was not what I thought would happen. I had thought about producing the fastest, most powerful blast of stone spike I could. The creature twitched and convulsed as the dozens of glass spikes piercing its body were colored a deep violet from its blood. One of the clear crystallin-looking spikes even protruded from the top of its head, having been thrust up under its muzzle. Then I received a flood of notifications.

[Congratulations you have killed a: level 23 Dofrian. Experience earned 5290]

[ You have dealt damage to Dofrian. Critical damage dealt to brain. Critical damage dealt to heart. Critical damage dealt to liver, kidneys.]

[You have leveled.]

With what sounded like a short sigh and an intake of breath, the soft whisper continued [You have leveled, you have leveled, you have leveled…] The whisper went on and on. Nineteen times. By the end, the soft, nice female voice had a clear tone of annoyance on the last, "you have leveled."

I needed to know what that thing was. I made my way around the spikes and got barely close enough to reach a hand and touch it. I used [analyze body] on the creature. My mana soon peeled away the layers of flesh in my mind's eye, and a general sense of the creature's internal makeup was revealed. It was made of some weird combination of steel and other elements. Its bones, claws, teeth, tendons, and fur were all made from the stuff. Its flesh, however, skin, organs, and blood were made of something else. The area around the places the glass had impaled was odd, as if the wounds had begun healing momentarily then stopped. I realized as well I had probably picked the one form of attack that could have hurt this thing by Piercing it and in such great quantities.