A grey armored helmet looked out of a hole in the ground.
Naturally, that was Kyle, wearing his brand-new helmet.
His face wasn’t covered since there was no point in covering it.
If anything hit his face, he would be in trouble anyway. After all, he was mainly dealing with beasts, not humans.
Also, if he wanted to change it, he could.
He knew how to forge armor now.
When Kyle saw no beasts around, he jumped out of the hole, revealing his new attire.
He wore full plate armor, and it was heavy.
It was not very thick since the material was technically beyond his level. If he actually made the armor thick, he would be extremely slow.
However, it was definitely hard.
While the plates were thin, they essentially covered his entire body, except for his joints at the back.
The back of his knees, the inside of his elbows, and his armpits still had some free space, but he needed that to move the armor.
The armor was completely grey, and Kyle had decided to design the chest plate to be similar to the armor the Spartans wore.
In short, his armor had plate abs.
He thought it was cool.
Due to its thinness, the armor looked like it was light, but nothing could be further from the truth.
If a normal human wore this armor, they would fall to the ground and would be unable to move.
This thing weighed over 200 kilograms.
A powerlifter might be able to take a couple of slow steps in it, but they would get exhausted extremely quickly.
’Damn, I look cool,’ Kyle thought with a grin. ’I fucking love my armor!’
A moment later, Kyle jumped out of the hole and ran towards the southwest.
His footsteps were loud, but he was not slow at all.
With his new power, Kyle would be able to sprint at a top speed of about 80 kph.
With his hammer, that speed dropped to about 70 kph.
With both his hammer and armor, it dropped to about 50 kph.
Yes, his speed had gotten a hit, but it was still more than fine.
Although, at this moment, Kyle couldn’t run at 50 kph.
The reason was that he had not used up all of the Wasteland Metal.
He only used about half and carried the other half with him.
The other half of the Wasteland Metal hung from his back.
Since Kyle could smith, he had decided to make a little metal carrier on his back specifically for the remaining ore.
He could always just get rid of it later.
After running towards the southwest for a bit, Kyle climbed another hill and looked in the distance.
He had gotten past the Hillstalker Ants’ territory, and things would become dangerous again.
“There’s a canyon. Lucky!” Kyle whispered. “I should probably go through there, right?”
“Yes,” Theodor answered.
Kyle looked around, making sure that no beasts were near.
When the coast was clear, he sprinted over to the canyon, which was about a kilometer away.
In the middle of his sprint, Kyle noticed a big bird flying over him.
This thing had appeared too quickly, and there was no place to hide.
Kyle’s instincts warned him of mortal danger as he saw the bird.
For a moment, Kyle saw the bird looking at him.
But then, it just continued flying.
“That’s a Mid Ferocious Beast,” Theodor said. “You are not worth the effort.”
Kyle sighed in relief as he kept running.
Mid Ferocious Beasts and stronger were the least of Kyle’s concern.
He was only a Peak Human, which meant he was three Stages below them, and one of these three Stages was a Realm jump, which was even more significant.
Kyle’s biggest worries were Early Ferocious Beasts.
He wouldn’t be able to escape, and he would need to fight, and at that point, it was all up to luck.
If it was a slow and armored enemy, he might have a chance due to the destructive potential of his hammer.
But if it were any other kind of enemy, Kyle would be done.
He managed to reach the canyon without further issues and jumped down.
As soon as he landed, his armor made a ton of noise, which echoed throughout the canyon.
That was an unnecessary thing to do since Kyle could have just been silent.
Yet, Theodor didn’t comment.
The next moment, Kyle ran through the middle of the canyon.
After just a couple of seconds, he saw a couple of stones on the canyon’s walls moving.
They lifted and transformed.
’It’s these fuckers again!’ Kyle thought as he saw three of these weird metal velociraptor things.
The three velociraptor things released some shouts and started to charge at Kyle.
“Oh, you want some?!” Kyle shouted as he sped up.
He directly charged at one of them and prepared his hammer.
The beast’s metallic claws and teeth extended.
It warily looked at the hammer.
As it carefully but quickly approached, it noticed that the hammer hadn’t moved yet.
The next moment, the velociraptor-thing jumped forward at incredible speed.
It jumped past the hammer’s reach and landed on Kyle.
CREEEEE!
The sound of metal grinding on metal reverberated through the canyon.
A tiny white mark was left on Kyle’s breastplate, left by the velociraptor’s claws.
At the same time, the velociraptor bit into Kyle’s neck, but Kyle just shrugged his shoulders, hiding his neck.
So, the velociraptor crunched down on Kyle’s helmet.
Kyle’s charge was stopped by the velociraptor’s power, but that was it.
“Hmph!”
Kyle grunted and hit the side of the velociraptor-thing’s chest, pushing it off him and throwing it to the ground.
Green Ether gathered around Kyle’s hammer.
BOOOOOM!
The hammer hit the beast’s chest, caving it in and deforming its body.
Its metal hide exploded, and blood squeezed out of the cracks under the pressure of Kyle’s hammer.
The other two beasts arrived at this point, and Kyle turned to look at them.
At that moment, they stopped moving.
The two sides looked at each other for about a second.
Kyle lifted his hammer.
And the beasts immediately turned around to flee.
This was not prey!
This was danger!
“Yeah, I thought so,” Kyle grumbled with a satisfied snort.
This was why Theodor hadn’t criticized Kyle for his unnecessary volume.
He was no longer weak.
Since Kyle’s last battle with these velociraptor things, he had advanced a level, learned Air Current, had several more battles, and made an entire set of armor.
Kyle had, at most, moved 40 kilometers away from Forest Haven Cradle, but during these 40 kilometers, he had changed.
The Kyle who had left the Cradle couldn’t be compared to the current Kyle.
In the open wilderness, he was still among the weaker inhabitants.
But inside a canyon, he was near the top.