Third Evolution (2)

Matthew was looking forward to the special evolution, more specifically, he was excited to customize his body with the newly available body parts that he obtained after a great difficulty of hunting the animals and stuffing them into his mouth.

There's already one thing that Matthew had been wishing to add to his body from the crocodile body parts. Surprisingly, it's not the crocodile's head. After getting used to the wolf's head, Matthew was reluctant to part with it, especially the wolf's heightened sense of smell and hearing.

Although the crocodile's head didn't fall short on the scary and menacing look department compared to the wolf, the usefulness of having reliable ears and nose that Matthew can rely on, couldn't just be neglected and replaced even by the enormous raw power of the crocodile's mouth.

And Matthew also remembered that the crocodile didn't chew his prey, but they swallowed them whole. That idea alone is preventing Matthew from changing his wolf head to a crocodile's.

When Matthew first arrived in the world like a chameleon, his body was quite weak, and resorting to use trickery and even borrowing the wandering spider legs to use as a weapon was a must if he wanted to survive.

And when Matthew first saw how the crocodile effortlessly killed the deer, the raw power of the crocodile's biting strength really fascinated him. Matthew then imagined if he ever got such a power to use for himself, he would be happy and content, but more importantly, he could rely on his own ability to live and survive.

Matthew was never against utilizing his wit and cleverness to win a fight, he even felt proud for himself when he succeeded in outsmarting his opponents using the tactics that he had planned. But being a man himself, Matthew also liked to have an absolute raw strength for himself, like the heroes in a superhero movie. Where they are able to lift cars with only one hand, or they could punch their enemies through several buildings in only one punch.

Using the crocodile's head, although may not give him the super strength that Matthew wanted, it will certainly give him a significant boost on his raw strength. But raw strength is not one of Matthew's main concerns for his current situation. After going through 2 evolutions, getting upgrades for his body and after living longer in this new world, Matthew realized that although the power of the crocodile's biting strength is very impressive, it is not what he needed most for his current situation.

Matthew could use his potent venom to immobilize and kill his enemies, his tongue also has many uses, from using it to control the deer's movement, to using it as a fast transport method.

And with Matthew's aura ability to go completely invisible to the naked eyes and the snake's detection skill, even his claws that are only considered as a slightly sharp fork if compared to the bear's claw that could almost chop down trees in one attack, can also be used to defeat over 20 monkeys with the help of Matthew's cleverness in combining the claws with the venom.

Even Matthew was able to defeat the crocodiles with their unimaginable raw strength that Matthew was genuinely admiring them for. So, after his journey in this world so far,

The one thing from the crocodile body parts that Matthew wanted to add to his body is the crocodile's hard bone-like top scales!

Matthew already learned firsthand how tough the crocodile's top scales were, and he even had to use the wolf's aura ability to boost his strength if he wanted to do any damage to it, and it was even negligible damage that can be ignored.

Matthew had been pierced with the spider's leg before and fortunately, it wasn't deep and it only opened a small wound on Matthew's side. But since then, Matthew was always taking his defense and safety as the first priority on his priority list since his defense is non-existent if not for his ability to camouflage.

If Matthew had the crocodile's tough scales, then he could take more risks when he is planning his strategy. And his safety is more guaranteed with an additional dependable defense layer on his skin.

Matthew also wanted to make some measures if his invisibility is unusable or didn't work for any reason, with the crocodile's bone-like scales, Matthew could take a few hits before running away or regroup himself. With his current body, Matthew wasn't sure if he would be able to do that since he felt that even his current scales is not enough to defend against the sharpness of a spider's leg attack.

But Matthew also needs to check for himself first if he is able to keep the properties of his chameleon scales to change their color even when he changed his chameleon scales with the tough crocodile scales.

If Matthew was forced to abandon the ability to change his scale color, he might have to rethink getting the crocodile scales.

As his body gets bigger, Matthew will depend more on his aura ability to camouflage and disappear from the nearby environment, and changing his skin color will only be the secondary method. But Matthew didn't know that if he replaced the chameleon's scales with the crocodile's scales, would Matthew still be able to activate his chameleon aura ability as easily as before?

He remembered what the system had told him before, his chameleon body part is the majority in his body, hence why Mathew could activate the chameleon's aura ability in a breath. The ability to change the skin color is unique to the chameleon, and if Matthew got rid of them, he wasn't sure if it would affect his chameleon aura ability in any way.

'I don't know how I could make this work, but the one thing I'm sure is that. When in doubt...Ask the system!'

'System, will changing the chameleon's scales to the crocodile's scale affect my chameleon aura ability?'

'There will be some difference in the activation time and how host controls the aura, but it will be minor and host should be able to adapt to it quite quickly.'

'As I've guessed then… It would be impossible to keep both the chameleon's color-changing ability and the toughness of the crocodile's scales right…'

'It is possible.'

'What? System? Did you say something?'

'Adding the color-changing properties to the crocodile's scale is possible, but it needs extra bionutrients.'

'Yes I know keeping both of them is greedy and I have to choose between one of them, you don't need to remind me about it.'

'...'

'...'

'Excuse me, what? System, can you repeat it once again?'

'The customization that host wanted is possible. Does host want the system to add it to the 3D hologram now?'

'YES PLEASE!'

After getting the confirmation from Matthew, the system added the tough crocodile scales onto Matthew's back, then it didn't stop, and also added chromatophores onto the crocodile scales to enable it to change colors.

Matthew looked at his soon-to-be new body on the 3D hologram in front of him, his already intimidating look from the wolf's head is enhanced further with the appearance of the spiky scales on the top side of his body. Matthew then took a minute to admire his new body, before gulping and glancing at the cost of bionutrients that he has to pay for adding these upgrades.

He knew that adding such things to his 2 and a half meter long body will be anything but cheap, and the system also said that it will add the color-changing properties to the crocodile scales, so Matthew did expect the price will cost an arm or a leg,

'I just hope that my current bionutrients are enough.'

When Matthew's eyes landed at the total price, his expression was quite… difficult to explain. There was a slight relief, but there's also a hint of disbelief.

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Crocodile Scutes 1400

Chromatophores 2000

Total= 3400 Bionutrients

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