The ten traits

Glitch looked at this scene with interest. What intrigued him was that he knew all the Shakhans in his village were normal-grade creatures.

In Universal Online, every creature was born with a certain potential and graded based on that.

There were Normal -> Elite -> Unique -> Rare -> Epic -> Legend -> Mythic -> ??? -> ??? -> ???.

In simple terms, all the creatures with higher grades would have more total stats than those of lower-grade creatures at the same level.

It was like how a level-one normal human could not compete with something like a unique-grade level-one monster in terms of stats alone.

All rulers started with normal-grade creatures, with a few exceptions where they got the eggs of higher-grade creatures, like those who started with dragons and more. This was why, for those players, hatching these eggs became their priority.

The grading system was group-based; all the basic Shakhans in front of him had normal grades.

Except for their unique trait, they were bigger humans with no extra power. However, all of them could learn and develop blood- and mutation-related powers.

To push them into the blood path, each of them would also develop a little understanding of the first blood method.

He realized that this sense of alertness among the seven groups was because of the primal traits that these three groups had.

Glitch learned that the list of trait names that appeared at the time of selection was based on their power and rareness.

These three must be the mysterious ones that even the internet did not know about.

He scratched his head. 'What was their name? Ah, yeah! Primal Emanation, Ravenous something, and something with F and then Aura.'

He clicked his tongue, as he could not remember the trait names. It was hard to remember all the exact trait names, and the bigger problem was that in the space village, no system could give him all the information.

As the ruler now, it was on his shoulders to unravel all these mysteries one by one.

He stopped thinking about the flashy center three and focused on the other seven.

Out of these seven groups, he knew about four.

First were the cracked-skinned shakhans with the shredding trait. These guys were one of the symbolic representations of Shakhans in the game world.

One of the most common groups has a limited but strong regenerative primal trait.

Then he also knew about the fat-dropping guys with wide mouths standing next to the shredding guys.

They had the devour trait, not common but still considered one of the weakest traits among the Shakhans.

Their trait allowed them to store fat in their bodies, which they could use rapidly when needed. It was a nice trait, if not for the bullshit downside of a permanent hunger state.

The problem with all the Shakhans' primal traits was that most of them came with absurd downsides. It was why players would prefer fat orcs over aggressive Shakhans.

Except for these two, he looked to his right, where the Shakhans with patchy skin stood.

All these guys had rough, brown, hard skin patches all over their bodies. They had the primal Carapace trait, a simple defensive trait that hardened their skin. It was one of the few semi-active primal traits, but it was mid-range, nothing bad, and not so impressive either.

But just beside these guys were Shakhans, who had vibrant green veins all over their bodies.

They looked like those bodybuilders who had all their veins popping out of their bodies. Except for the veins, everything was similar.

He never saw these types of Shakhans personally, but in his last life, there was a player who made a big name through these guys.

They were Shakhans of absolute defense, with the trait of primal resilience. From what he knew and saw, this was a broken power, but using the power came with a hidden cost. It was so bad that the immortal Shakhan player fell from grace within a few days of his fame.

Except for these four, he also knew about the Shakhans standing on the further front side of the circle.

Their elongated arms reached to their knees along with those slit eyes, giving them a predatory look.

He just learned about them through the internet. They were not so popular; they just had the power to use primal instincts that enhanced their senses.

From a normal physical fight perspective, it was a decent power but paled in front of other broken powers.

There were still two groups in the outside circle, and he knew their names from the lists. The 6th trait was primal convergence, and the 7th trait was bloodlust mastery.

Now, labeling them separately was a different matter. He had no clue which of the two was who.

Glitch stood there with no plan of interfering with the group, but even when minutes passed, no group was fighting among one another.

This was weird.

Even Lark whispered from the side, "Boss, what's going on here?"

He looked around and could see a few members with red eyes ready to pounce at one another in each group, but the others held them back.

It was a good thing that at least they had a sense of danger and were sensible enough to not start a dying war.

Except for these, he noticed most of the group had a leader figure that was standing in front of the group.

This was especially true for two of the center groups. One of them had a male shakhan, while in the other sub-group, there was a female.

It was good for them to have a basic strength-based hierarchy, but the last sub-group at the center was a mystery.

It was the only group where none of the ten Shakhans cared about others. They just stood there, looking past other shakhans toward the forest.

Out of three, he was getting a sense of peace from the group with a female lead, a sense of greed from the male lead, and a sense of dread from the last group.

It was not fear but like, no one in this group cared about the changes going around them. 

Glitch rubbed his forehead and started floating down, "Let go Lark. It's time for some introduction."