Learning A New Ability

After Matthew turned on his aura ability, it was very easy for him to get close to the snake without being noticed and enabled him to launch a quick and deadly attack to the snake's equivalent of a neck.

With his wolf's mouth and a clean strike to the snake's neck, Matthew was able to generate sufficient biting force to penetrate his sharp wolf teeth into the snake's body and break the snake's vertebrae, resulting in the snake falling unconscious from the shock and death the moment after.

With its life gone, so does the control over its body. With its muscles relaxed and without any brain to control them, the snake who was coiling its body around the tree trunk fell hard to the ground.

After confirming his kill, Matthew then deactivated his aura ability and followed after the snake down to the ground.

'Let's see if this guy is really venomous or not.'

Matthew used his claws to open up the snake's head forcefully and used his mouth to crack open the snake's skull, revealing the content behind it. Matthew then searched for any kinds of organs that looked like a sac or a gland that may contain the venom. And after ransacking the nook and cranny of the snake's head, Matthew finally found an organ that looked like a gland behind and under the snake's eyes.

'So this guy is really venomous! Lucky that I didn't have to get bitten first to find that out! I guess watching animal shows isn't that useless after all. But for future reference, I think it's safe for me to assume that all snakes are venomous regardless of their color.'

Matthew then proceeds to remove the gland from the snake's head and isolates it so that it won't spread the venom all over the snake's meat. While he was separating the venom gland, Matthew then thought of a possibility that may boost his strength even more,

'Does the snake's venom have the same effect as the spider's venom? If they have different properties then I could surely combine them together and make an even more potent and more dangerous venom than the base venom from the original creatures who used them!'

'System, can you identify the difference between the wandering spider's venom and the snake's venom?'

'System will be capable of doing that after host has completed the monster data for the Boa Dendroaspis.' the system's voice resounded on Matthew's head.

'Alright then, I will diligently complete it! Speaking of completing the monster data, that means that I have to eat the snake right?'

'I've never thought about the deers and wolves because they looked just like any other red meat that I usually eat, but this… Would it taste weird? Some countries on earth even ate snake meat for health purposes and stuff right? The snake's meat is still meat after all, it won't be worse than a spider's exoskeleton!'

'Anyway, let's start eating and gather those monster data!'

Matthew then walked past the snake's head that used to contain the venom gland because he was afraid that the venom is still there and may affect him if he was careless, so he decided to leave it and just ate the snake's body.

When Matthew started to take a bite out of the snake's body, he finally tasted the snake's meat, and to be honest, he felt that the taste is,

'Surprisingly bland. The boar's meat is so far the best, the deer's come in second since they both have quite a tender meat in some spots, while the wolves came in third because their muscles are quite tough. The spider is quite ok and felt like I was eating a giant-sized snack back then with its crunchy exoskeleton texture, and the crocodile's meat is quite tough as well, but some parts are still quite good and enjoyable to eat, but this snake's meat is quite bland and chewy which is not that bad considering my diet in the forest so far.'

After suddenly giving his rating about the meats that he had eaten, Matthew then remembered something.

'Wait a minute… Wasn't I supposed to go home and eat my crocodiles... D*mn it! I forgot because that venom combination thingy got me very excited.'

But in the end, Matthew, who already started feasting on the snake's meat decided to just eat first and think later, he was quite hungry right now and he didn't want to just abruptly stop eating his meal. And a three-meter-long snake shouldn't be able to make him full and still leave some spare space in his stomach.

By the time Matthew finished eating the snake, he had gained 51% of the snake's monster data and the snake's body is eaten clean only leaving the head part where the venom gland used to be and the snake's spine and ribs which Matthew didn't bother to even try and chew because he had never eaten bones before and he doesn't have any plans to start eating them yet and he also didn't know if his digestive system will be able to process them.

Although eating the bones can significantly increase the monster data that Matthew will gain, Matthew was against torturing himself by forcing himself to eat the hard bones of the animals he hunted.

'As long as I can hunt more of those animals, I won't be eating their bones anytime soon.'

After he finished eating the snake, Matthew then climbed a tree and started swinging away back to his nest.

Back at his nest, Matthew didn't have anything left to do in his agenda besides completing the crocodile's monster data and leveling up so that he could do his third evolution. Matthew also wanted to continue his journey exploring the forest, but he wanted to finish the two tasks first so that he will be stronger and more prepared just in case he accidentally got into another sticky situation.

Completing the crocodile's monster data only needs Matthew's time since he only have to chew and swallow the crocodiles that he had hunted, while the second task to level up to level 15 required him to go out and hunt and he had just gone back from a short exploration and Matthew didn't have the mood to go back hunting right after he went home. So Matthew decided that he wanted to do something else productive.

One thing that came to Matthew's mind is that he got one ability that he unlocked after his second evolution, but he hasn't tried it out because he didn't have the time yet. But now that Matthew didn't have anything better to do, he will finally try it.

'System, to activate the wolf's innate aura ability, I only need to channel my aura outward through my wolf mouth right?'

'Host is correct. Host needs to channel host's aura through the wolf's body part on host's body and then spread the channeled aura throughout host body. Host also has to make sure that the aura doesn't connect through the chameleon's body parts since host's chameleon body parts are more dominant and will result in the wolf's innate aura ability being overwritten by the chameleon's innate aura ability.'

'Thanks for the explanation system!'

'Alright then, let's try this out.'

Matthew then connected his mind with the glowing white orb and started to feel the movement of the aura inside his body. His aura is currently flowing steadily in his aura pathway that spreads all over his body. If he wanted to activate the chameleon's innate aura ability, he only needs to visualize the aura seeping out from the aura pathway and straight out of his chameleon body without giving it much control.

But now that Matthew wanted to activate the wolf's innate aura ability, he has to visualize the aura to seep out only from his head. Besides the wolf's claws that he got to replace his chameleon claws, the head part is the biggest wolf body part that Matthew has on his body.

Matthew then started to visualize the aura inside his body to rush out to his head and he succeeded with only little difficulties in preventing a little amount of aura seeping out from his other body parts. The next and the last step is to spread the aura that is coming out from his head to the rest of his body and then the wolf's innate aura ability will activate.

But this second and last step is quite troublesome for Matthew. When he tried visualizing the aura exuded from his head moving and spreading evenly all over his body, the rest of the aura throughout his body started to get out of control and slowly seeped out from the other parts of the body. And when Matthew wanted to control the aura leakage from his other body parts, he lost control of the aura from his head.

He tried it again several more times but ended up failing each time because of the same problem of alternating his control between spreading the wolf's aura and preventing the leakage of his chameleon aura. Matthew tried doing it very slowly and in a very controllable way doing each separate task carefully, but still ended up failing although he got much further progress compared to before. He also tried bursting the aura out and spreading it as fast as possible before the leakage happened, but also failed miserably when the leakage even went faster along with the burst of aura.

Matthew then decided to take a breather and started snacking on the crocodile's body to ease his tired mind. 'Because what's the best thing to do other than snacking to relieve your tired heart?'