Three Options

'Thank the bearded god that it actually worked!'

Matthew plopped down to the ground after hugging the snake as if his life depended on it.

Going back several minutes in time, before the bear went to Matthew's and the green snake's location after the snake's loud hiss, Matthew is currently climbing on top of the snake's long body.

Matthew was given three choices when the snake hissed and alerted the bear of their whereabouts. One is to just run away or hide anywhere he wanted because his full invisibility gave him the freedom to do so, he could even stand next to the bear without the bear realizing it. But if he did that, the snake that he had just hunted for several hours would probably end up inside the bear's stomach, which Matthew didn't like even one bit of it since he had a thick history with his prey getting stolen.

The second choice is to fight the bear off and make the bear his meal. This choice is very dangerous since Matthew didn't know about the bear's strength. Although Matthew was quite confident about himself after learning his aura ability and the addition of the upgrades that he had done to his body, Matthew knew that his strongest suit when fighting is giving his enemies a surprise attack.

If his surprise attack somehow failed, Matthew will be vulnerable, and going head-on against a bear that was even bigger than the big crocodile is something that needed Matthew to prepare himself for it first. Not saying that Matthew also had seen what the bear was capable of doing after it growled loudly and its claws left a deep mark on a thick tree trunk without using any aura abilities.

Matthew could probably now do that using the wolf's aura ability, but because of the size of the claws and the difference in body weight, it won't be as powerful as the bear's. Just imagining that if he weren't careful and accidentally got hit by that claw attack, Matthew will be sent straight to heaven with his body tattered and quite possibly cut in pieces.

The first option will give him a quick, safe, and easy escape for Matthew to preserve his life, while if Matthew chose the second option, he will play another gamble with his life, and now he is left with the third option.

Matthew had been thinking about it for a while, and he always wondered about how exactly his chameleon ability worked and what are its true capabilities were. Not only could it make himself disappear out of thin air and enabled him to fight his enemies while staying invisible, but the aura ability also made the blood that was splattered onto his body disappear. Matthew was thinking that if he ever used armor or a weapon in the future, would he be able to hide it using his aura ability?

He always wondered about it, but since he didn't feel that he would be getting any armor or weapons anytime soon, he kept the idea on the back of his mind. But now that he is in quite a difficult situation, that idea suddenly popped up again from the depths of his mind.

'What if I can use the ability to hide the snake along with myself?'

That question suddenly appeared in Matthew's mind. With his time starting to run out, Matthew quickly tried to think of the pros and cons of the options that he had.

The first option is the safest option, the second option is the most dangerous option, while the third is the most experimental one and the chances of Matthew succeeding is quite unknown and Matthew himself isn't quite sure if he would be able to pull it off.

But after he thought about it for a second, although the third option has a high chance of failing, the stakes are not that high. Even if Matthew failed to make the snake disappear along with him, his body will stay invisible and if the bear had any idea about attacking the dead snake or grabbing it, Matthew could just yeet himself off the snake and run away to safety.

Matthew realized that he didn't have much time and he quickly walked over the top of the snake.

'Going by the logic that the things that are attached to my body will also disappear, that means that if I hug the snake hard enough then maybe the snake will also disappear?'

Following his train of thoughts, Matthew then hugged the snake as hard as he could using his whole body and his 4 limbs were gripping the snake's body tightly. Matthew hugged so hard that if he could dig himself into the snake's body, he would do it.

But after Matthew holds the snake's body almost as if it was his treasure. And although Matthew couldn't see for himself if the snake's body had already become invisible or not, he could feel that something is not right and the snake is still visible to the naked eyes, which means the plan would fail and Matthew has to abandon his hard-earned prey.

As the bear was only a few meters away and they were only separated by a tall patch of grass, Matthew needed to think of something quick to fix the problem he's getting.

'What am I missing here? The blood that was scattered to my body also turned invisible as long as they are attached to my body and they will lose invisibility the moment they leave my body. Is the answer really only to attach the things to my body?'

'It shouldn't be that simple right? Let's backtrack a little bit. Why is my body able to disappear? The answer is because of the chameleon's innate aura.'

'Then… the answer I'm looking for is the aura! I need to spread the aura not only onto my body but also the whole snake's body!'

Now that Matthew finally has figured out what he has to do, he quickly gets his mind into it. Using his method of visualization to manipulate the aura, Matthew pictured the aura to encompass the snake's body that was right beneath him.

His aura started to move out from his body and slowly spread throughout the snake's body, covering it from head to tail. Although Matthew's aura was invisible to his eyes, he could feel the movement of his own aura and he knew when the aura had reached both ends of the snake and covered it completely without any gaps.

Matthew was fortunate as the moment his aura finished moving, the bear had already gone past the tall grass and the bear was only a few steps away from him and the snake.

Matthew was glad that his plan seemed to have worked without fail as the bear failed to notice him and the snake was near its legs. But Matthew didn't expect that his body would feel so tired as he felt that his aura was drained at a rate that he never felt before. Matthew didn't realize that he should have expected this to happen when he tried to make another creature that was about 3 and a half meters long and as thick as an adult human calf invisible.

Although his plan to hide himself along with the snake succeeded, Matthew is now fighting against the exhausted feeling that assaulted his body all over along with the huge draining of his aura. Fortunately, the bear didn't stay long, and after only circling the area twice and failing to find anything, the bear decided to leave the area and go back to its burrow.

Matthew waited until the bear completely went inside the huge hole before finally releasing his tight grip on the snake and deactivated his aura ability. The stress that his body accumulated caused him to fall down to the ground with a plop.

The first thing that Matthew does after being freed from the predicament is to see his aura reserve. He connected his mind with the glowing white orb, and he was surprised to see that the white orb had lost its glow. It's not as bad when Mathew ran out of aura just like when he fought the crocodile and the white orb only looked like a clear glass orb after he ran out of aura. The orb is still white in color, but it only glows very dimly that it almost looks like it lost all of its glow when looking at it at a glance.

'Yup, that is enough stuff for a day, time to get back.'

Matthew then wrapped his tongue around the snake's head and carefully dragged it further away from the bear's nest and ate it clean only leaving the bones and head part after Matthew felt that he was already quite far away from the bear's nest.

And after the long eventful day, Matthew quickly returned back home and slept until he accidentally woke up again at dawn and decided to eat the big crocodile to complete the crocodile's monster data as well as fill his empty stomach after eating only a snake.