Learning

During this week Alex had also experimented on trying to figure out exactly what could generate a trait along with what couldn't. The rules for this were roughly as follows , First the traits gained from eating an animal were based off the traits that that exact animal themselves had. Second was that external forces only generated a trait if Alex himself thought it was possible or made sense. Heat resistance fell in this category since Alex knew of animals that adapted to such conditions from his past life. The most well known such creature was the tardigrade that was known to be almost unkillable.

The final rule Alex found was that if he ate something that usually wasn't edible like stone he needed to have a trait firmly set in mind or he wasted his efforts for nothing. He had only discovered this via trial and error with various different materials. He had generated the [bone eater] trait through this process with the requirement of him eating twice his weight in bones. Obviously this was not an easy task since his current biology was not exactly built to digest bones. Thankfully he took this into consideration and only ate bones ground down into powder.

Technically he stole said powder but since he had never been caught no one knew about it. Alex had a bit of a dilemma after figuring out the rules around traits however. 'I know that creatures have fantasy style powers in this world , but they have adapted to be able to handle those things and i have no clue what i would need to do the same.' he thought seriously while sun bathing at the canteen. (AN: What? he's a reptile what did you expect?)

It was a rather large problem for Alex since no matter how you think about it superpowered animals would definitely have inbuilt traits to prevent their own powers from harming themselves. without these adaptations it is not unlikely that Alex could kill himself accidentally if he tried to gain an element of some kind. 'The real problem is i have no fuck clue what these traits are to try and get them!' he though angrily stabbing a nearby fruit with his tail. [TRAIT DISCOVERED: weaponized tail] the system dragged Alex out of his thoughts in surprise. 'Son of a bitch! you mean i had that trait this whole time and i only just figured it out!?' he raged.

It was only at this point Alex realized he had innate traits from his base form that he could figure out for free. He had originally thought that the [carnivore] trait was a fluke but on a deeper thought it was obvious that no multicellular organism had absolutely no traits much less a reptile like Alex. This thankfully gave Alex a direction to look for more traits while working on his generated traits letting him pass the next week easily. During this time he had discovered a total of five traits that were kinda obvious but he had never paid attention to till now.

These traits were [ridged feet] , [sharp claws] , [enhanced brain] , [night vision] and [shadow camouflaging]. Most of these traits were simply things that all reptiles like Alex had with the exception of two , specifically [enhanced brain] and [shadow camouflaging]. The first of the two is the reason Alex's physical brain could still work without getting fried by his higher thought processes as a sapient creature. The second of the traits was because of his black coloration that made him all but blend in to any dark area perfectly.

After the discovery of these traits Alex had the means to increase his size since he fulfilled the conditions. but he held off on that since he didn't know how it would effect the requirement of the traits he hadn't unlocked yet. Alex was almost done with the [compact stomach] and [bone eater] traits thanks to his small size making them easy to finish. but if he increased his size he didn't know if the two requirements would increase alongside it. This was fine as far as alex was concerned since he learned an interesting bit of information by ease dropping on a council meeting.

Apparently the guild had began the recruitment drive for the members of the fifth fleet and was expected to complete it within a month. Alex could roughly tell where on the timeline that put him since it was explained to him by a bored admiral all sorts of knowledge about the commission and world in general. since most of this knowledge was very important to Alex's survival he actually paid close attention during these times. Each fleet arrived almost exactly a ten years apart from each other to coincide with the elder crossing. this knowledge plus the information given during the meeting told Alex that he was only a few months before the events of the game he had played.

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Someone had suggested that i make a list of all of the traits so as to reduce any confusion later on and i personally think it's a great idea. as a result from now on at the bottom of the chapters will be said list.

Generated traits: Compact stomach , Swimming muscles , Amphibious eyes , Bone eater

Unlocked traits: Herbivore level 1 , Enhanced scales level 1 , Water breathing(salt) level 1 , Heat resistance level 1 ,

Fused traits: Omnivore level 1

Discovered traits: Carnivore level 1 , Ridged feet level max , Weaponized tail level 1 , night vision level 1 , Sharp claws level 1 , Enhanced brain , Shadow camouflaging

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My p@treon is listed under my pen name : loskro if you are having trouble finding it. patreon.com/user?u=81578854