Chapter-7 | He sold me a pig...

Inside an empty room, a youth was sitting on the floor staring at a small snake that had its eyes closed. This youth was naturally Adrien.

The room only had a single window connecting it to the outside world while the rest of the room was completely empty. When Adrien entered the room after accepting the card key, he found himself staring at a small snake. He thought about the implications of what was happening in front of him.

In front of him was the same panel, but this time the target was a small snake. He could synthesize bloodlines for another lifeform! Discovery!

...

[Bloodline Synthesize System]

[Current Target: Shuttle Snake]

[Target Bloodline: Leca Rhizen Mnidox (Lesser Spatial Serpent)]

[Synthesize]

...

After brooding for a while, Adrien decided what to do. The merchant gave him a chit and reminded him to chant the words written on it in front of the snake. When done, the snake would be able to open its eyes and imprint the first person it sees as its most intimate.

When he finally did as the merchant said, the snake opened its eyes and gazed at the outside world for the first time. The moment it spotted Adrien, its eyes shone. For a moment, Adrien almost saw stars in those eyes but they quickly vanished. Then it slithered towards Adrien and coiled around his neck, resting there. Seeing the little guy resting, Adrien didn't have the heart to remove it.

His purpose in buying it was primarily to use it for storage, but he felt he could do more with it. Adrien selected the [Synthesize] option and selected the [Space] element. By now he had become familiar with all the steps.

However, it was a bit more challenging when it came to drawing a life form. This was because he had to depict everything and there was no way to write and explain what something is.

For the baby snake, he had to choose a theme like a serpent with a huge space inside it. As for what the outcome would be, he could only guess. But he knew one thing from experience, the more powerful the creature looks, the better its abilities will be. After all, he didn't have the confidence to draw the same all over again.

On the canvas, Adrien started drawing what he envisioned and slowly a majestic creature came into existence. To signify size, Adrien drew a serpent shadowing the sun with its bare body. It had its mouth open ready to swallow anything in its wake, and within its open mouth, one could clearly see clusters of galaxies.

To add a finishing touch to it, Adrien added some random rune-like symbols to its scales and a black crystal with a purple hue over it on its forehead, as he did with his own. After three hours of exhausting work, he finally completed what he had started.

After appreciating the masterpiece and checking if he could add anything else, Adrien completed his submission. Soon a set of abilities came into his view.

...

[Ever Expanding]

[Owner of the ever-expanding space. Do introduce some pleasant-looking flora and fauna.]

...

[Spatial Inheritor]

[Intunement with the space element of the highest grade.]

...

[Star To Star]

[User can swap with any predetermined object, regardless of the distance. ]

...

[Born In The Rune Sea] (Limited)

[Rune Sea's gift for the user. Use varies rune to rune.]

...

Adrien could tell that something good would come out. The question was whether or not the ability would be useful to him. But for the first time, an additional description like (limited) came attached to the ability. He couldn't explain why.

Reviewing his work and ability description, he finally clicked on confirm in the menu. When he did so, a bright light enveloped the small snake. For over an hour, Adrien waited in anticipation for the appearance of the little snake, but when it finally appeared, it looked completely different from before.

Its black scaly body had turned into shimmering stars. It no longer had a fleshy body but was completely ethereal as if the night sky had turned into a small snake itself. Star-like dots connected along its body, forming a rune that was connected to a crystal-like scale on its forehead.

But the most fascinating thing for Adrien was that he was able to understand the snake's intent. While human thoughts are usually formed with words, it was not the case with other beings. Every creature had its own way of communicating and so did the little snake. Whenever he talked to the little guy, they exchanged back-and-forth semantics until they understood each other.

However, this little guy's appearance had changed too much to be true. He did not expect that the merchant would even recognize it. He told the little one to hide in his sleeves, but he didn't expect that it would be so persistent. It changed its size and hid inside his hair.

"Crunch, can't you hide somewhere else?" Adrien grumbled.

Yes, he named the little guy Crunch. Ignoring his antics, Adrien stepped outside his room. The change in the little guy's behavior was noticeable after synthesis.

Adrien felt hungry after working for so long and he had not eaten anything since morning. With the canteen as his destination, he moved to the fourth floor. He didn't need to worry about his meals with the family badge, but he was unsure what Crunch would eat.

If it were before, he might be able to provide him with something meaty to eat, but now, he wasn't sure it would work. For Crunch, it became ethereal after the introduction of the brand-new bloodline.

"Hey Crunch, what do you want to eat?" Adrien asked while munching on his food.

Adrien picked up some dried somato sticks that looked like a mix of potatoes and tomatoes and waved at Crunch, but he did not respond. Instead, a word was transmitted to him, 'energy'.

Hearing the word 'energy', energy crystals came to his mind. Thinking about it, he opened his pouch and took out an energy crystal. Seeing the black energy crystal on his palm Crunch's eyes lit up. Before Adrien could react, the black energy crystal was replaced by a strand of his hair.

Adrien wanted to admonish Crunch. If it kept doing like this one day he would surely become bald! But before Adrien could say anything about how low on energy crystals he was right now, the hair got replaced by an opaque crystal. This crystal was completely different from its former counterpart, and completely sucked any energy it held.

"I thought with your small size I wouldn't need to spend much, but you are such a glutton... Now that I think of it, why did that merchant sell you cheap?..." Adrien thought deeply when he raged aloud, " Damn, that merchant! He sold me a pig!"