Preperation

After breakfast, Roy questioned Tilok for a while longer before killing him. With his tendons cut like that, he would die anyways so Roy decided to end his misery. He learned about as much as he currently could of the language. He didn't know why, but he felt his learning capabilities were far higher than his intelligence should allow. Not even mentioning that he was fully cognizant right after birth.

"I don't know why that is, but I have far more important issues right now." Roy said aloud.

As a level four goblin, he got thirty nine experience for killing Tilok. This allowed him and Inbellis to level up. If what Tilok said is true, Nabik is an evolved goblin warrior at tier 1. He is apparently very lazy and didn't bother training his Mana Heart to tier 2. This ended up being perfect for Roy, as he would have no chance against a tier 2 enemy in his current state.

Roy began his planning phase as he designed his helmet in the dirt. He also had an idea to turn his right hand into a hatchet in an attempt to utilize the hatchet arts he learned, but quickly discarded the idea for now.

'I wouldn't mind turning my right hand into a hatchet with my skill, the only issue is I can't easily remove it after. My left hand is barely usable outside of combat right now for that exact reason. I need to do something though, I've trained the [Hatchet Arts] skill to a pretty high level and my hatchet is at the point of breaking any time now.' Roy pulled out his hatchet, seeing the rust and chips on it.

'The chips from cutting those neck bones are getting pretty bad now, and the handle is cracked all over... Ugh, if I need to do it so be it.' Roy placed the hatchet back into his bag and continued his helmet design.

He planned to make the mandible move independently so he could still talk and eat. He had a design on the snout to add a couple horns that stick out just enough to dissuade an unarmed attack towards it. He kept the armor around his eyes thinner to avoid blocking his view. He gave his pointed ears a layer of keratin to protect the cartilage, but made sure not to add it anywhere that could block sounds. Lastly, for design purposes, he gave a couple horns on the top of the head.

Looking at the design, Roy thought it to be quite menacing. Though he didn't know if his body could hold the weight of the big horns on top of all the other armor, so he decided to leave those for after his next evolution.

Lifting his hand from the design, Roy began to produce the keratin on his face. Knowing it would take a while, Roy called Solus over to practice English during the mana regen periods.

...

[Enough Experience has been accrued]

[Keratin Growth Level up 6->7]

About an hour later, Roy was standing in front of Solus with his full body armor completed. His hands akimbo as Solus looked at him mesmerized, tail wagging. After a couple of seconds of proud display, Roy removed his hands from his hips and started to test the new weight difference. His body was far heavier than it used to be, but Roy was also far stronger. His strength now at twenty nine, he was no longer the small and weak creature that could barely lift its own hand.

Looking back, Roy was once again happy and surprised at his rate of improvement. He decided that now was a bad time to attack directly. Looking at his hands, Roy came up with an idea that he could use in order to get around the no disconnect issue of his [Keratin Growth] skill.

'I hope this works as well as I think it will' Roy took out the hatchet once again as a reference. He then looked at the top of his left foot and activated his [Keratin Growth] skill once again. Soon a small pillar grew out of Roy's foot. It was as dense as Roy could currently make his keratin. He continued to stare at the hatchet as he made the keratin grow in a similar shape. After around an hour of effort, Roy's hope had paid off.

[Enough Experience has been accrued]

[Keratin Growth Level up 7->8]

On top of Roy's foot, laid a keratin hatchet. It's base was attached to his foot still, so he requested the sword from Solus. He slowly sawed the bottom of the hatchet handle and eventually it disconnected.

[Enough Experience has been accrued]

[Apprentice Crafting Level up 8->9]

"Oho?" Roy was surprised as he saw the notification that his skill leveled up. He quickly looked at the information on his new hatchet.

[Keratin Hatchet]

Notes:

A hatchet made using keratin produced through mana.

Made by Roy Palmer

High Quality

Durability [40/40]

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Hmmm" Nabik was standing near the cave mouth while looking out the entrance. He had a big frown on his face as he pondered why it was that every goblin he had sent out had yet to return.

"Is it possible that they had all died to the enemy that killed the guards? But how is it that I didn't here a single scream? If they are that powerful they could have just come right into the cave... No, they must be using assassination tactics." Nabik, finally realizing the situation he was in, went back to collect his last nine goblins.

"You lot, come here." He ordered to the goblins that were finishing up the last of the kobold bodies. "I have reason to believe all the others are dead. They have been gone for far too long, and the last one I sent to check on them has yet to return as well. Form up, we are going out to find the perpetrator." Nabik ordered before turning around and going to his seat to wait.

...

"Is he serious?! If they all died what are WE supposed to do?!" One of the goblins quietly yelled to his buddies.

"Look man I don't know anything about that, but what I do know is that you're dead if you don't listen to him. So keep quiet and don't let Nabik hear you..." Another goblin warned the last.

"Yeah, let's get ready. Hopefully they are just being lazy and set up camp out there." A third chimed in, hopeful that they wouldn't have to fight a direct confrontation.