All the while, as he witnessed the deer's unwaveringly plodding their way through the hanging orchard of death, Seth had commanded two of his puppets to circle around the clearing.

It was the two remaining mannequins that were given this task, under the supervision of the Spirit Animal.

They had broken away from the group the moment he had laid eyes on the clearing and the bounty of prey it had within its bosom, so by the time the first deer had finally reached the base of the carnivorous tree, the puppets were in position on the other side of the clearing.

It was just in time to see why the deer had bothered to trek through the orchard without feasting upon any of the deceptive hanging 'fruit' like he had expected.

The lead deer raised its head up high, closing its eyes, as a faint light began to emit from the top of its head. At first small sprouts of emerald broke through its formally impenetrable Jade skin then, like flash freezing a water fountain, the crystal rapidly grew up and outwards, splitting off at seemingly random intervals where they'd eventually come to a point.

When the crystal had stopped growing, the deer was left wearing a regal emerald crown, a pair of 12 pointed crystalline antlers.

The newly crowned buck tilted its head forward as it stabbed its antlers into the tree, forcing the pointed tines a few inches deep as it wiggled back and forth. Once it was satisfied, it removed the tines from the tree trunk, however the process left a few of the tines stuck in its victim.

Yet the buck didn't care in the slightest, fresh tines growing to replace the ones it lost, as the buck stared at the tree trunk with twinkling eyes. More specifically, it stared hungrily at the golden ichor leaking from the wounded tree.

As the herd gathered and began to taste their sappy treat, Seth was instead focused on the few antler tines left impaled in the body of the tree.

'Hard but brittle… like a diamond. Which means it is great for cutting but could be easily broken, but it solves the problem of getting through their defences.'

He narrowed his eyes and drummed his fingers against his thigh while he thought, tapping an old video game song that often got stuck in his head. At first he was planning on ambushing them, seeing if he could take one or two by surprise, but now it was going to be more difficult. He didn't know if they could all produce those antlers or if it was just that buck.

So, planning for the worst case scenario, he realised he'd need to find a way to harvest as many of the antler tines as possible, most likely while the creature was still alive.

Seth flexed his fingers a few times before clenching his hand into a tight fist. Despite the lack of visible muscles, and a figure that would be likened to a scarecrow more than a man, he could feel the power within himself. He could only reason that it had to do with the stats.

His biological score was currently sitting at 73, but it was hard to tell what that meant in terms of actual performance.

He had yet to feel any noticeable difference, however that could be intentional. Like a frog in a pot steadily approaching the boil, the heat increases gradually in small instances that he wouldn't notice the difference.

While it was hard to quantify, he definitely didn't feel like a scrawny, malnourished young man and, while his condition might be preventing him from reaching his pinnacle, he was still nothing to scoff at.

Seth felt that, if he returned to the past, he could give a lot of strongman competitors a run for their money. He couldn't be considered the strongest human in the world, even by previous standards, but he was rapidly approaching the peak of human capabilities.

The best part was, the capabilities were not focused in a single area. Strongmen, to achieve their feats of strength, often come as large and musclebound. Sacrificing speed, manoeuvrability and agility for size and power. Yet Seth was not burdened in such a way.

He had the strength of a bodybuilder, the speed of a sprinter and the stamina of a triathlon competitor. Every time he flexed his muscles he could feel that foreign energy rushing through his body and emboldening him.

Mana, Qi, Spiritual energy, Magika, whatever people decided to call it. It was sculpting them into the perfect human, the pinnacle of their race, and it was unlikely to stop at such a simple feat.

Fixing his gaze back onto his prey, Seth gave the mental order to proceed. He didn't need to explain his plan, for they were one mind.

The next instance, the two puppets that had been lying in wait erupted from their positions and broke into a sprint. Their gait perfectly matched as they ran headlong, side by side, straight towards the herd that was still lapping at the tree's sap.

Even though the Jade Deer had been empowered and given a formidable defense, in their instincts they were still nothing but deer. Their heads perked up at the sudden sound, ears locking on to the danger like radars before they scattered.

Prancing through the hanging orchard, they raced away from the unknown predator in a mad dash. Some hit each other, sending their herd mates to the ground as they employed an age old survival strategy.

They didn't have to outrun the strange beasts, they just had to outrun each other.

With another thought, Seth sent the rest of his ramshackle army of puppets into the fray, keeping Bob beside him, as they sowed the seeds of chaos deeper into the feeble minds of the herd.

The beasts stumbled over each other, running in circles as their options for escape were rapidly dwindling. But Seth wasn't a fool, he knew a trapped beast was the most dangerous, so he intentionally left a gap in the puppets formation. A gap that led directly towards himself and which the crowned buck quickly took advantage of.

Lowering its head, it charged towards the weakness in their formation, tossing a skeletal puppet to the side and dashing out of the encirclement, followed by a few of its herd. However before it could even taste the sweet nectar of freedom, Seth leapt from his cover.

The azure writing on his black ring flashed as he used the [Expeditious Ratreat], burning one of its charges as he vanished into a flash. The moment he activated the enchantment of the ring, Seth turned into a streak of light that rocketed through the air in an instant, the destination racing towards him as he felt like he was being squeezed through a tunnel as thick as his pinkie.

As soon as he emerged from the space tunnel, regaining his physical form, Seth leapt onto the Deer and yanked its head to the side. Although he didn't weigh much, the sudden change was enough to send the deer tumbling towards the ground.

Like a serpent, Seth coiled around the deer, using his legs to lock himself in place as he weighed it down with his body, and immediately got to work snapping off the tines.

It wasn't as easy as he thought, while they were brittle enough to be snapped by hand it still required a good deal of force, but Seth had plenty of time.

The moment the first tine snapped off, he immediately tossed it to Bob to use as a makeshift dagger and, while his companion got to work killing the deer they had managed to capture, Seth kept harvesting the emerald antlers as they constantly regrew. The buck wiggled underneath him, letting out cries of pain and anger as its weapons were taken from it instead of being buried in its predator's flesh. Never had it expected to be blatantly disrespected like this.

He had managed to break off half a dozen viable tines, as well as half of one of the antlers accidentally, when something yanked him from his hyperfocus and reeled him back to reality. At first it was just a scattering of birds in the forest nearby, flocks of different species flying away in a panic.

Narrowing his eyes, he could see treetops shifting and rustling, but not from the birds. A loud crack echoed through the overgrown street before a mighty crash shook the ground beneath them.

Forcing the trees out of the way, a gargantuan figure burst into the clearing. It stood on its hind legs, announcing its presence with a blood chilling roar that sent globules of spittle flying. But no one would dare to tell it to 'say it don't spray it'

The creature that had interrupted his hunt, Standing at 10 feet tall on its hind legs and wreathed in stone armour that covered its colossal body like an armadillo, was a very angry grizzly bear.

"Ah fuck."