Creature

About a week later, without having water poured on him, Aryan woke up late, he washed, dressed, and ate the last of the remaining food. It was finally time. Time to go on a journey, Aryan packed the few pair of clothes he had and looked out into the distance, "Well, I guess it's time to go." and with one step, his travels began.

Deep into a dying forest made up of trees that crumbled by a touch, Aryan, holding a makeshift wooden spear he hadn't used, hiked forward, it had been two days since he started his journey and so far all he had drunk was dirty river water and eaten the few bugs he had found. After another day of walking, Aryan noticed that the trees looked more alive and the vegetation grew greener, there were also more bugs and he was even able to catch a lizard, which was the most meat he had eaten in a long time. Suddenly, Aryan heard a slight rustle from the right, he froze and as if realizing it had been found, the animal shot out of its hiding place with immense speed and clawed at Aryan's neck, shocked, he didn't have time to dodge and could only instinctively activate the Surpassers Skin, a deep scratching sound that reminded you of a knife scratching stone, reverberated through the empty forest, the animal without leaving a mark flew past Aryan and landed about 5 meters away. Although Aryan wasn't cut, the force of the attack in addition to his unpreparedness, caused him to fall back and be disorientated, however, he quickly recollected himself, picked up the spear, and stood in a defensive stance.

Given a moment to breathe, Aryan was able to see the animal clearly, it was a feline creature about 1.8 meters with dark green fur, that merged into the surrounding foliage, long claws, and strong muscles that didn't give Aryan long before it attacked again, thinking that there was maybe some protective item that stopped it from clawing part Aryans neck last time, it instead pounced with both claws, hoping to push him to the ground and shred his face. However, now that Aryan was prepared he was able to put one foot behind the other and brace for the impact, he lifted his left arm in a shielding manner, blocking his face and the spear in his right, the claws of the creature soon connected with Aryans left arm that was now almost completely black, due to his now almost a month and a half of training, causing him to take a step back, but nothing more. Using the opportunity of the creature having its chest wide open, Aryan forced the spear into it causing it to screech in pain, he ignored the cries and pushed the spear further into its chest, eventually piercing its heart and taking its life. Slightly out of breath, Aryan took a deep inhalation and relaxed his nerves, he pulled the spear from the carcass, and with a smile, said, "I'm eating well today.", seeing the sun starting to set, he started to skin the beast, making sure to not to damage the useful fur, cut the meat and roasted on a fire. As Aryan stared at the juicy, golden brown meat, he couldn't help but salivate, and with 3 bites it was gone, he then decided to cook another, then another, and then another, and by the time he had eaten his fill, about a fifth of the meat was gone, content and full he used the luscious soft fur of the creature as a semi sleeping bag for the night and fell into a deep sleep.

As soon as Aryan woke up from the budding sun, he decided today was the day he completed the Surpassers Skin Stage, he started reciting the mantra and over 99% of his skin turned a matte, rocking black with more flakes constantly torturing and replacing his skin. 99.5%, 99.7%, 99.9%, 100%, after about 2 hours of suffering, his body was now completely stygian, something seemed to click as if, he was now complete, which boosted his previous defense by about 3 times, without wasting time to even testing his new resistance he began reading the next excerpt, aptly named, The Limitless Muscle Stage, this stage required him to recite a similar but different mantra to the previous stage, this stage immensely strengthened his muscles and gave him the ability to convert stored fat and food into muscle in an instant, boosting his strength to another level.