Norris had a dream.
In it, he returned to the surface carrying magic crystal ore—and among them was even one of A-grade quality.
Selling it off, Norris paid his debts and still had plenty left.
No more grimy, exhausting days of mining.
With that money, Norris studied herbalism, became an apothecary, and opened a potion shop in Windless Town. At last, he lived the peaceful life he had always dreamed of.
One day, that girl walked into his shop.
The girl whose name he had never even learned.
Norris was so excited he forgot how to greet her, but luckily she spoke first.
He thought she had come to buy potions, but instead she said:
“Strange… haven’t you woken yet?”Then came the crisp sound of slaps.
…
Slap slap slap slap—
When he opened his eyes, what he saw was a Puchi smacking his face lightly with its tentacles. The strikes had no force, but they were loud…
???
“At last you’re awake. How’s your head? Clear? The poison didn’t rot your brain, did it?”
That voice!
The reaper—no, the one who had asked him if he wanted to live.
Norris finally sorted dream from reality, recalling what had happened before.
“My body…?”
He tried moving. No discomfort at all—in fact, he felt better than ever!
“It really… healed?”
As he sat up, a metallic scraping sound came from his body.
He looked down to see countless diamond-shaped silver-white scales covering him. Under the glow of the fluorescent mushrooms, they shimmered with shifting colors as he breathed.
Lifting his hands, ten silver-threaded claws gleamed—looking as if they could shred anything with ease.
What unsettled him most was the hollow in his right chest, where countless fungal filaments had woven a new structure.
What had he… become?
Inside the mushroom hut, Norris was at a loss, even trying to pinch himself to check if he was dreaming—only to fail, his claws too long.
“Clear-headed now?” Lin Jun asked again.
“Y-you… who are you? Why did you turn me into this?” Norris felt like a monster.
“I’m the one who saved your life. And as for why you’re like this—didn’t I tell you? Just a small price for healing.
I even asked if you were willing to accept it. Forgot already?”
Norris thought back—true, he had agreed. But he hadn’t imagined a price like this.
Sensing his thoughts, Lin Jun added, “What, if you had known you’d end up like this, would you have chosen to die instead? If so, you can still choose now.”
Norris looked at his claws, swallowed hard.
Even knowing this, he still didn’t want to die…
Lin Jun reassured him:
“There’s nothing bad about this. Isn’t that silver armor beautiful?
Honestly, I didn’t expect scales and steel-bone together would mutate into this color.
And it’s not just pretty—you’re stronger now.”
“Stronger…?”
“Want to test it?”
Soon, two Puchis led Norris to a clearing in the mushroom forest.
A fat Puchi lumbered over.
Gurgle—
“You mean I have to fight it?”
It wasn’t cowardice—Norris truly had no combat training. His only decent skill was 【Pickaxe Strike】 for mining. Seeing the fat Puchi’s bulk made him shrink back.
“Of course not.”
Norris had just relaxed when the fat Puchi reached into its gut and pulled out a massive boar.
???
He stared at the unconscious beast, rummaging through his memory of dungeon monster guides.
“Isn’t that a Stonehide Boar?” Norris asked uncertainly.
“Correct!”
Stonehide Boars didn’t literally have stone skin—the name was just descriptive.
They were among the few beasts able to roam the sixth-floor Botanical Garden, thanks to their thick hide and brute strength, unafraid of the plants’ entangling vines.
“No way! I can’t fight a sixth-floor monster!”
Though level 21, Norris would struggle even against monsters from the first three floors.
“Relax, I’ll be watching. You won’t die.”
The Puchis shoved him forward as the boar began to stir.
It woke to a rock hurled by a Puchi striking its head.
Snorting, it shook itself and locked onto Norris’s shining silver scales.
The towering beast rose, taller than a man. Norris’s courage evaporated—he turned and ran.
That was worse. His movement spurred the boar into a charge.
【Charge LV3】
The skill wasn’t high level, but with the boar’s massive weight, the impact was terrifying.
Norris, flailing blindly, never noticed.
It caught him from behind, tossing him high with its tusks.
He traced a neat arc through the air, crashed into a mushroom tree, and bounced to the ground.
His HP dropped only 15%, but Norris, unaware, thought he was dying.
After writhing on the ground, he realized it was just pain. But the boar was already on him again.
This time it rammed him against the mushroom trunk, shoving hard until he sank into it.
Panicked, Norris tried to hold it off with his claws—and to his shock, they pierced straight through its hide.
Not a fatal wound, though. The boar went berserk.
It rammed again and again. Its tusks weren’t sharp, and his scales held, but his organs took the brunt.
Blood sprayed from his mouth. Desperate, Norris drove his claws in and ripped, while his mana instinctively gathered at the hollow in his chest.
Boom!
A mushroom cannon fired point-blank. The explosion tore half the boar’s head away, the recoil blasting Norris across the ground.
Lin Jun, watching, wasn’t concerned. Though it looked brutal, Norris still had about 60% HP—some of it lost to his own cannon.
Gray, who had hidden her ruby and crept over to watch, muttered her judgment: “Sverigis. So weak.”
Sverigis?
Lin Jun thought a moment before recalling it was a dragon term for beings unworthy of a name.
Was Gray mistaking him for a dragonkin?
But he had no tail, no wings, and his scales hugged close to his body—nothing like her thick, raised plates. How could she confuse them?
Still, her verdict wasn’t wrong—weak indeed.
With the skills Lin Jun had given him, even a Puchi could have beaten that boar. Let alone Norris, with far higher stats.
But looking at Norris’s past skills, he clearly had never fought much.
Lin Jun and Gray found his performance pathetic. But to Norris himself…
He stood over the fallen boar, chest heaving.
A strange rush coursed up his spine—fear, excitement, joy, and pain tangled together, filling his mind.
He looked at his bloodstained claws.
“So this is… power!”
【Level Up: LV21 → LV22】