Refreshment

The next morning, Matthew woke up earlier than usual. He had a good night's sleep after practicing his aura ability until late yesterday.

Matthew's plan for today is to explore the area past the bear's nest to see if his hypothesis about how the division of the forest animal works is correct or not.

The first thing that Matthew usually does after waking up is to stretch out his body by doing light exercises, but for today he decided to do it while going into the crocodile lake since he hasn't drunk clear water for quite some time now.

Although drinking animal blood also worked to quench his thirst and provide the water that his body needed to avoid dehydration, drinking fresh water in the morning right after waking up is one of the most refreshing things for Matthew to do since he had done it every day for about 20 years before. And the taste of drinking blood is not half as refreshing as drinking clear water.

Matthew then started swinging to the crocodile's lake slowly, taking his time, enjoying the fresh air and the green and lush environment around him.

While Matthew was swinging from tree to tree using his whole body instead of only using his tongue, his speed didn't slow down compared to when he only used his tongue. Swinging by using his 4 monkey limbs is far more agile and felt more natural to Matthew, and the more he used them, the more fluent he was when he maneuvered between the tree branches with all the varying shapes, sizes, and heights.

And with it, his coordination with his new limbs also got better and it doesn't feel foreign anymore to him even though Matthew only got the limbs yesterday. Since there was only a slight difference between the monkey limbs from this world and the human limbs he used to have, it only takes him a slight adjustment to get used to the powerful monkey limbs in this world which is several times stronger than before and he also needs to get used to the difference of the proportion his currents limbs compared to his human body before.

Matthew continued on his short journey while still paying attention to his body coordination. And it only took Matthew about 10 minutes to arrive at the lake, which is about 5 minutes faster compared to when he used his tongue swinging method.

After arriving, Matthew walked to the side of the lake, then he used both of his hands cupped together to drink the water.

Matthew brought up his hands to his face and slowly drank the water. This method of drinking is very inefficient rather than putting his face directly into the lake just like how Matthew usually did it when he was still using the chameleon limbs, but after getting his first limbs that were very similar to a human's, Matthew just wanted to do it.

The lake water that was cooled by the cold wind last night slowly flowed into Matthew's mouth and down into his throat, and the refreshing feeling that he felt every time he drank the clear water appeared once again and helped clear his mind a little and soon a calm feeling also came into his heart.

Matthew then put his cupped hand back to the lake and scooped up some water again. But this time, instead of drinking it, Matthew splashed the water from his hands directly onto his face. Matthew repeated the action a few more times, he rubbed his eyes and rubbed his whole wolf face with his hands as if he was washing his face just like how he used to do it when he was still a human.

Matthew then looked at his reflection on the lake and he could see his wolf head staring back at him.

'Well, I look totally different from before.'

Although Matthew's physical appearance is clearly different from when he was still a human and even a toddler could realize it, what Matthew meant was not that.

'My face used to look so tired and restless all the time, but now even with this wolf face, I could tell that my current face didn't have as many problems as my former face.'

Matthew then lowered his body and sat on the side of the lake and kept on staring at his reflection for some time, before he decided to drink the water once again with his cupped hands.

After the water flowed into his stomach, Matthew got up and he was finally ready to start his day with a refreshed mind and soul. Matthew looked at his reflection one last time then smiled at it before slowly turning his body away in the opposite direction.

Matthew then climbed up a tree before he started swinging once again.

'Let's see what is beyond that bear's nest!'

Now that Matthew had completed his morning routine and he even got extra motivation, he went on full speed on the journey back to the bear's nest. And the supposed 45 minutes journey only took Matthew about 25 minutes.

When Matthew arrived about a hundred meters before the bear's hole, Matthew activated his chameleon aura ability that he practiced the whole evening yesterday. But he only activated it until the blur stage to help him camouflage better but still conserve his aura reserve.

Matthew's body is currently 2,5 meters long from his head to his tail, but now that he became a biped that stands on his two legs, his height is only about 160cm because the monkey's limbs are not that long to start with.

Even with his blur stage, Matthew will be quite noticeable if a wolf had locked onto his figure from a short distance. But any other creature would have a harder time to notice him if they didn't have excellent eyesight.

Matthew slowly traversed his way to the place where he saw the bear's nest that was actually a big hole or burrow last time. Matthew paid extra caution on his steps and he tried his best to avoid stepping on the dry leaves and twigs because he already had firsthand experience about the sensitivity of the bear's hearing capabilities.

Matthew crossed over 100 meters quickly and finally arrived at the bear's nest. The place is still the same as last time, and the tree that the bear hit before is still looking as bad as before, but at least it looked like it was recovering from an old wound after the last time that Matthew saw it almost cleaved in two by the bear's claw attack.

When Matthew arrived at the bear's nest, he activated the chameleon's aura ability fully, to go completely invisible, and then scouted the area.

Although Matthew's body had gotten bigger which means that more aura is needed to fully cover his body, he also could feel that his aura reserve had gotten bigger compared to before his evolution.

He even felt that he could stay fully invisible for more than 30 minutes with his upgraded mana reserve.

Matthew continued scouting the area using his eyes, heat sensor, and the scanner function, but he didn't find any other animals. Other than the bear that was detected both by the heat sensor and the scanner that is.

The bear is currently under the ground, inside the burrow that the bear used as its nest. While the heat sensor was quite straightforward enabling Matthew to see a bear-shaped red shade under the ground, it is the first time that Matthew heard the scanner notifying him about a creature found underground.

'A creature has been detected 32 degrees sideways and 110 degrees downward, 10 meters away from host's current position.' the system voice sounded in his head.

Matthew was lucky that he didn't need to play the guessing game and think where 32 degrees sideways and 110 downward are since the moment the scanner function picked up the bear's existence, the heat sensor also detected the bear's whereabouts and then projected it directly onto his eyes.

'Well it's good that the heat sensor and scanner function complement each other, but if the scanner ever has a further effective range than the heat sensor, that means that I have to get used to the degrees thingy sooner or later.'

'Okay Matthew, stop thinking about trivial matters first, now is not the time for that.'

Matthew is currently only 10 meters away from the bear's nest and if he made any unnecessary noise, he might wake up the bear accidentally, and he could only run away to try again later.

Matthew is currently thinking about what he should do with the bear, of course, his main objective is to explore the area beyond the bear's nest, and Matthew could just sneak past the bear while it was asleep. But Matthew is thinking,

'Why should I be afraid and too cautious with this one bear? If I made enough preparations then I'm sure that even the bear will also be my bionutrients source! No matter how strong he is, if I could break his bones and puncture his organs then he would surely die!'

'And if I couldn't do that, I could always use my venom to deal with it slowly but surely. Which is probably what I would do in the first place because exchanging hits with this living truck is just simply dumb.'

'I've decided then, I want to defeat this bear first before proving my theory!'

Matthew then looked at his surroundings and thought,

'Alright, let's see what can I do to deal with this one.'