There was a thing that alex was going to do regardless of his choice to increasing his power. he was going to increase the defensive quality of his scales by a huge amount. the way he did this was by using the add folder option in the system and selected a single scale from his side. he then made the scale smaller but five times denser and added an elemental reflective layer on the outside. this gave the scale a glossy sheen but otherwise increased alex's resistance to elemental attacks considerably. he had noticed after clashing with the anjanath a bunch that he was very susceptible to elemental attacks if he didn't have that element.
Alex also added a faded grey ripple pattern to the scale while changing its shape to a tear drop shape with the round part being the base and the sharp part the tip. when alex pasted this new scale design to his full body image he got a price of a hundred thousand points as the price. he only had about half of that at the moment but a quick great jagras hunt would fix that so he just filed it away as a for later thing.
Alex got the hunt for the great jagras done much easier then the two times mentioned previously as he was much bigger and much more elementally charged now. he didn't even need to ambush the big iguanas anymore as he could directly land on their heads from the air and snap their necks instantly. the admiral had actually asked alex if he was going to up his hunting list to the more dangerous stuff like the rath colony that lived near the top of the ancient forest. alex had nodded but didn't give the man an actual time frame for it.
A single great jagras wasn't really a large meal for alex anymore at his size as he could finish off the meat in three or four mouthfuls. once he was done he made his way to his nest that had been moved to just outside the entrance of astera as he had grown too large to wander around the trading hub. it was even a big upgrade in quality too as they had used thick slabs of bone meld stacked together into a sort of huge cream colored yurt that was nice and spacious inside it for the odd visitors alex got occasionally.
It had been a pain for alex to move the light orb to the new location without someone noticing it but he managed. he had to hold the thing very carefully in his mouth while resisting the urge to swallow it but he finally set it in its new hole in the ground before burying it again. his new nest much like his old one was filled with fluffy or soft things for him to sleep on. it was funny that on more than one occasion the admiral himself had stayed the night in alex's nest.
The man explained that he spends so much time out in the wilds that he sleeps easier knowing he has a fearsome monster nearby to keep him safe. the man was an oddity no matter how much alex tried to reason his existence out. the guy didn't even have an official weapon for hunting but used the seven inch long dagger he kept on him instead. this was like trying to kill a whale with papercuts but the man did basically that which terrified alex. two days later and alex got his new scales finally and he had to admit he looked damn good.
The grey ripple patterns on his scales mixed with the glossy sheen made his body look like it was made of obsidian and silver minus the ruby red star shaped scales on his forehead. apparently the drastic change in the size and shape of his scales also removed the few burn scars he got from the anjanath as well. when he showed up out of his nest the people nearby gasped in awe at how magnificent he looked. for others though it was like christmas as they knew that this meant that alex had shed his skin again.
The people of astera liked to make jewelry from alex's shed scales as a sort of good luck token since he was their mascot. the fact that alex had a fresh new set of scales meant that there was a huge amount of his old ones just sitting in his nest. it didn't take long for a few people to ask to collect them to which he nodded permission. however alex had apparently not hidden the light orb well enough as he watched as someone walked out of his nest which forced him to stop them with his tail.