After deciding that Matthew wanted to try out his new body by fighting other live animals, he started going up the tree and started swinging into the new area.
Matthew's new body after the third evolution really gave him a quite significant boost of strength. Although the boost wasn't as much as when he activated the wolf's aura ability, Matthew now got sturdier limbs, increase in muscle mass and strength, and he also got a solid defense for the backside of his body, and the top side of his limbs with the crocodile scutes. And if Matthew decided to use his wolf aura ability, then there's a high chance that he would be able to pierce through the crocodile scutes using his claws.
But now, without even activating his wolf's aura ability and by just using his muscle strength, Matthew is able to jump from tree to tree with only relying on his leg strength and without using his tongue most of the time. But if the distance is too far and Matthew miscalculated the distance, his 6-meter long tongue will give him a helping tongue to catch the tree branch he missed.
The trip that used to take about 30 minutes by walking, 15 minutes by swinging with his tongue, now only takes Matthew about 10 minutes with his new method of traveling. Although it was more tiring to fully rely on his body strength to launch his body here and there rather than taking advantage of the swinging mechanism and the momentum, Matthew was actually thrilled knowing that his body had the capabilities to do that.
After arriving at the new area, Matthew started patrolling around the area to search for a deer or a boar that he could bully for fun.
'Come to think of it, system, does the scanner function get an upgrade after the third evolution?'
'Yes, after the host underwent the third evolution, the scanner function now has a 10-meter long radius away from host's body.'
'Can you please activate it please?'
Without answering Matthew's command, the system activated the scanner function, and Matthew could now see that the circle that used to pop up on the minimap around him became slightly bigger than usual. The upgrade is actually quite good considering the effective radius went 2 times wider than the last one, but comparing it to the minimap that displays a large area on the forest, a circle with a 20-meter radius is still not significantly large.
Matthew then continued his search for the cannon fodders, and although he still didn't find anything so far, he didn't get discouraged at all after remembering his search for the snake that literally took hours, before he found it by chance.
While Matthew was activating his scanner function, his eyes are still his most reliable tools to search for other animals since they are sharp and didn't lose their sharpness from 20 meters away, which means that Matthew is still able to see a blade of grass clearly from that distance. But when he was peeling his eyes left and right for the prey he was looking for, Matthew suddenly remembered something,
'System, now that I got the snake's heat sensor, how do I use it? Why didn't I feel any difference with my eyesight?'
'According to the Boa Dendroaspis monster data, the heat sensor works automatically without the need for any activation. When the heat sensor detects any heat that was released by a creature in a 10-meter radius, the creature will be given an indicator on host's vision. The heat sensor is also capable of detecting another creature through objects as long as it was inside the heat sensor's effective area of 10 meters. '
'Alright, it sounds cool. Let's continue our search so that I can see how cool it is with my own 2 eyes!'
Matthew went past the area where the monkeys used to be, and the place where he buried the rest of them that went uneaten. And now, the area looked so quiet compared to a week ago where there would be monkeys jumping, running, and shouting all over the place. The place used to be unique with all the monkeys, but now it feels the same as the rest of the forest, losing all of its charms and it won't be known as the monkey's area anymore, but rather only as another boring part of the forest.
Matthew went deeper into the forest, and after he continued moving on forward, he finally found the cannon fodders that he was searching for, with long branch-like antlers protruding out of their head, Matthew was 100% sure that it was a group of deers.
Since Matthew wanted to test out his new body strength, he didn't activate the chameleon's aura ability, and he planned to just barge in like he owned the place.
Matthew was moving closer and closer to the deers by running from a tree and jumping to another tree and repeated the action, again and again, to gain speed and momentum to use it when attacking the deers so that he could launch himself with incredible speed.
When Matthew was finally 10 meters away from the deers, he finally got the notification from the scanner, and his heat sensor also gave the deers a red shade all over their body, enabling Matthew to see their position clearly even though some plants and leaves were blocked Matthew's direct view to them.
But when Matthew was that close to the deers and he didn't bother to control his movements, and his rough and sudden movements made so much noise, that even the deers noticed that there was something moving towards them from the top of the trees.
But alas, with Matthew's current speed, and from all the momentum he build-up, the deers was too late to realize that Matthew was targeting them, and by the time they realized, Matthew was already at the nearest tree from the deers, his legs already planted onto the tree trunks, and in the next moment, Matthew jumped from the tree and launched himself directly towards the biggest and tallest deer in the group.
Matthew's body flew aiming at the deer's neck and from his previous experience, Matthew already knew that the deer's life is already at his mercy since even the biggest deer won't be able to react to his quick and sudden movements. But when he was only about 2 meters away from the deer, the deer suddenly got out of its shocked state and abruptly moved his neck to dodge Matthew's body that was coming straight at him.
Matthew was quite startled and didn't expect the deer to have such a good reflex, but he only stayed in that condition for a fraction of a second, and he then moved on to plan B.
With the deers only about 2 meters away from him, and the neck only deviated slightly, Matthew quickly propelled his tongue and latched it onto the deer's neck and his body that was flying freely like a cannonball suddenly turned to a guided missile and it was locked on to the deer's neck.
With that, Matthew is completely sure that his attack would not miss, and the deer will soon be his early afternoon meal.
While Matthew is right that the deer wouldn't be able to dodge him anymore, Matthew was caught completely off-guard when the deer suddenly released a white-like mist covering all of its body.
'ISN'T THAT AURA?'
Matthew was so dumbfounded that the moment his feet landed on the deer's back, instead of holding onto the deer's body, Matthew released his tongue from the deer's neck and he used the deer's back as a foothold and jumped to another nearby tree, away from the deer that was emitting out aura from its body.
'How is that possible??'
Ever since Matthew's first day arriving in this world, this is the first time that Matthew had ever seen a deer emitting an aura out of its body.
Matthew observed the deer quietly from the tree, and he was now sure that the deer is really emitting an aura. The deer's body suddenly looked slightly bigger and more muscular just like the wolves' aura ability, and not only that, the deer's eyes also glowed slightly when the aura ability had covered all of its body.
But the most intriguing change is that the aura seemed to be more focused on the deer's antlers where the aura seemed to have made a protective layer on the antlers and even gathering at the tip of the antler and made an even denser aura layer that looked like an extension of the antler.
While the biggest deer was undergoing all these changes, the rest of the deers on the group collectively gathered behind the aura-emitting deer's body.
Matthew looked at the group of deer's behavior and thought, 'Yup they are definitely the deers that I know, their cowardness is still as amazing as ever. But that one deer is really peculiar though. This is the first one from its race that I've seen used an aura. But this is maybe not bad, I can properly test my strength out with this buffed-up deer.'
Matthew was actually grinning right now, but since his face is a wolf that has crocodile scutes instead of fur covering its skin, the grin doesn't look friendly at all.
The deers were currently seeing their attacker's whole appearance. And although they had never seen any creatures similar to the one that is right in front of them, the scary wolf face who was showing off its fangs with a proud expression, is plenty enough reasons for them to be hiding behind their leader's back, and the leader who already prepared himself to face the unknown threat that may be able to wipe him and his group off the face of the earth.
But Matthew of course wasn't aware of what the deers were thinking about, but seeing that one deer was now fully ready for battle, Matthew's grin turned even wider and his wolf fangs were fully showcasing their glory, free for the deers to see.
'Let's do this!'