Some Xtreme Cultivators will tell you that Heavenly Tribulation is a good thing, but don’t be fooled, it is not. The world already hates you, so why would it send good things your way? That wouldn’t make any sense. Even the most minor Heavenly Tribulation had the power to wipe out your soul, and sure, it rewards you after, but are you crazy? The soul is an integral part of cultivation; without it, our path of defiance is permanently severed.

  –Excerpt from The Calamities of Heaven, by [RETACTED]

  Harry suddenly felt a sensation of utter dread; it was as if death had come and was now facing him down calmly, with its grip firm on his soul. The rat’s hearts were beating so fast that he felt they were about to explode.

  Time seemed to slow as the sky darkened, the wind vanished, alongside all sounds and sensations except the roaring of blue lightning that skipped across the sky like a stone on water, forming a terrifying spiderweb of Heavenly might.

  Suddenly, the sky quaked, and the dome of heaven rumbled as a bolt of lightning descended upon Harry’s body with mountain-smashing, sea-draining might, reducing both his soul and body to mere ash.

  Then the dome of heaven cracked and something akin to a cold, distant scoff echoed throughout the world, unheard by all but the worthy and the special.

  Harry had died, just like that.

  Or at least, that was what should’ve happened.

  A vibrant green light burst into existence on the spot where Harry once was, rapidly shaping itself into the body of a rat that the world thought dead. First came cells, then tissues, organs, bone, and soon a full, functional body was formed.

  The body’s eyes were empty, though, lifeless and without spark. That changed when the green light vanished, replaced by an ethereal crimson glow that seeped into the rat’s newly formed body, regenerating the soul within before vanishing too.

  At this, the world seemed to pause once more, and lightning rumbled across the now-clearing sky, as if enraged. But it could do nothing but move on, compelled by its own rules.

  Soon, everything went back to normal, as if terrifying tribulation hadn’t just nearly killed Harry.

  Harry just stood there, gazing out absentmindedly as his thoughts raged, not even glancing at the notification his authority was pushing at him.

  His death just now had been so swift that even his intuition failed to warn him in time; one moment he was gazing at the sky in wonder, and the next, death had its grip on his soul as the world itself deemed him unworthy and thus wiped him off its surface.

  He’d just been killed, crushed like an ant, just like that, he hadn’t even been able to resit or flee even for a second.

  It was pathetic, and it angered Harry greatly. He suddenly felt as if all progress made so far was for naught; he was still just too weak, too weak to grow without being killed due to his progress.

  Harry was upset at his fate, the world, and its unfair rules, but there was little he could do about it with his current strength. So, the rat buried such matters with a vow to grow stronger, enough to dictate his own terms rather than the reverse.

  He knew that would probably take a while, but it was a worthy goal in the rat’s eyes.

  Then, Harry sighed dejectedly and summoned the nagging notification that kept nipping at the back of his mind.

  Trait upgraded: Wooden Exoskeleton (4) → Wooden Exoskeleton (5)

  The trait has evolved: Wooden Exoskeleton → Iron Exoskeleton.

  -Please select an upgrade option:

  -Adaptive Iron (5): Each blow struck against your exoskeleton causes it to adapt to better counter that type of attack, permanently. You’ll have to survive first, though.

  -Immortal Iron (5): High above the clouds rests a certain immortal overseeing tribulations for this region, perhaps when he sees you with his energy, he’ll refine you into a nice bar of immortal steel? +2000% growth rate, but at what cost?

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  -Thunder Iron (5): Within the cells of your Iron Exoskeleton now lurks the power of a single bolt of tibulation, +100 AGI.

  Harry gazed at the upgrade options, slack-jawed. Not only did they sound absurd, but they were all level five. This was his second time seeing a level five upgrade; the last one had many absurd restrictions, though.

  Only one of the three had any sort of restriction, and it was the third option; the idea of being refined into something like that horrified the rat. The upgrade description also confirmed the existence of immortals in this world, which was interesting.

  Harry eliminated that option, leaving only two options; thunder iron was what called to him the most, the boost to his [AGI] would be immense and would push him past the 100 mark, which was a significant milestone for both Harry and his authority.

  It was just a half-baked theory, but Harry believed that any stat that crossed that threshold would manifest a rune and put him in a state similar to the state his last stance upgrade placed him in when triggered.

  The rat wasn’t sure, though, and while he absolutely loved speed, the idea of permanently adapting to any type of attack gradually as long as he lived to tell the tale was amazing. The rat also wanted an upgrade similar to core strength, but for all his stats, so that he could effectively pull on all their potential without wasting any.

  The longer the rat thought about it, the more difficult it became to pick an upgrade, so Harry did what he should’ve done a long time ago: consult his intuition. Thunder Iron barely provoked a reaction from it; it was only the adaptive iron upgrade that drove it crazy.

  Without further ado, the rat selected the upgrade and felt a massive amount of power well up from the depths located within, bursting through every part of his body as it made its way to the parts responsible for his exoskeleton.

  It seeped into it, and Harry felt it groan and shift under its metaphysical weight as it warped into something fundamentally different from what it was before. The first to change were the wooden plates–they shifted from being faintly decenable to full-blown iron plates that interlocked with each other tightly like scales. Then came the exoskeleton itself; the authority of predation smashed into it, and it liquefied into a black, thick substance that looked darker than the night itself.

  It spun into inky tendrils that fused with the iron plates, transforming them, too, but Harry could somehow tell that they were still iron; they just looked different. Then it engulfed Harry and rapidly fixed itself to him until it looked no different from the rat’s previous exoskeleton, just a tad darker and with tiny interlocking plates of black iron, thousands of them.

  Harry stood on his hind legs and inspected himself, marvling at how black he’d become; he now looked like a tall, slender blob of living shadow adorned with scale armor and bright crimson eyes, sharp and extremely white teeth and claws and twitching ears, pointed ears.

  Harry didn’t feel any stronger, but he felt hard; it was as if his entire body now embodied the concept of defense and armor. The rat felt like an impregnable murid, unmoving and still—a living constant.

  Harry didn’t even bother attempting to harm himself; that was now a pointless endeavor, his [DEF] stat was just too high.

  A findish grin broke out on Harry’s face; he enjoyed progress like this deeply and wouldn’t mind if things continued like this at all.

  He knew that such rapid progress required great risk and death, a lot of death. That wouldn’t be a problem, though; he planned to return to the unnamed forest after taking care of his affairs here; he loved that place despite the great danger.

  As Harry was about the summon his status sheet, his ears twitched and his eyes snapped to the left, where he heard rustling sounds coming from. The grass suddenly parted, and two rats came into view.

  The first one Harry saw was a stout, muscular rat covered in scars and matted red fur, with a missing left ear and a lump of pink flesh where his balls were supposed to be. The second one was on the lean side, with a scrawny, malnourished build with bloodshot and weary eyes that scanned around constantly.

  It was this rat who spotted Harry first, and squeaked something urgently to the other rat, whose head snapped in his direction a second later, eyes flashing with weariness and confusion that rapidly transformed into anger once it saw how near Harry was to the burrow.

  The stout rat’s body tensed, and his muscles bulged as he dashed off, teeth bared and mouth wide as he moved toward Harry.

  He made no move to stop the rat, though; he wanted to see just how far he’d come, what he could withstand, and what he could do.

  That charging rat was surprisingly fast for its size and was upon Harry in a few seconds, slashing down with a diagonal swipe of its large, dirty claws. Harry felt it connect, but no pain; the same couldn’t be said for the rat, though.

  Harry could see it clearly–the look of absolute horror and realization slowly forming on its face as its claws pause as if they had met a wall, then rip themselves out of his hand under their own force.

  It didn’t stop there, though, the rat’s paw continued under its momentum, only stopping when it was nothing but a bloody pump of bleeding flesh with broken bones poking out. Only then did the rat manage to retract it and drop to the ground in absolute anguish.

  Harry scoffed, shot it one last look, then stomped down on his head hard, popping it like a wet, water-filled balloon that sprayed gore everywhere.

  A single crimson ethereal mouth unwound from Harry’s back a second later and locked onto the corpse before floating over to it, devouring it in a single, massive bite, then it vanished.

  With that done, Harry shifted his gaze to where he thought the other rat was, but he saw nothing but a cloud of settling dust; the other rat was gone.

  Harry’s eyes became beads of darkness as they dilated and rapidly began scanning the area while his ears twitched madly, taking in all the sensory input his brain could process in an attempt to figure out where the rat could’ve fled to.

  It didn’t take long for Harry to find out, and he instantly dropped on all fours and gave chase, vanishing from the spot as he tapped into the full base of his [AGI] stat, even activating [Adrenal Burst] once, just to be on the safe side.

  Harry danced around the clustered blades of grass of the grassfield like a bolt of lightning, even slamming into some when he had no other option, obliterating them entirely.

  When he eventually caught sight of the rat, it was desperately scrambling through the grassfield, a look of absolute terror and despair written all over its features, and his eyes seemed even more bloodshot than before.

  It was surprisingly fast, though, likely due to some unknown innate trait. Harry shot forward like a coiled spring, disregarding everything else in exchange for speed as he rapidly closed the distance between them, mouth open wide as he aimed for the rat’s head.

  Logically, it shouldn’t have been able to dodge such an attack, yet somehow the rat managed to move out of the way in the nick of time, avoiding a fatal blow.

  Harry crashed into the ground and some blades of grass a few meters away shortly after, forming a small mound of dirt and roots as his body slid across the ground with great speed before finally coming to a stop at a particularly strong blade of grass with massive roots.