There was only four newly generated traits that Alex kept from these attempts , [elemental flow] , [enhanced smell] , [hard horns] and [enhanced lungs]. The first of these traits came from a strange white crystal that a scholar had eagerly brought to him. The stuff was apparently called world stones since in was filled with every type of elemental energy at once. This strange mineral was unfortunately completely useless to people as they tended to self destruct if tampered with. This stone in particular was from the old world and was a reminder to the scholar about the remaining mysteries in the world.
When the scholar heard about Alex's active adaptation ability he wasted no time at all bringing the stone over in hopes that a use for it would finally be found. His selfless sacrifice towards knowledge paid off when Alex told him what he "intuited" from the stone. Alex obviously couldn't tell anyone about the system so his cover story was that whenever he "adapted" to something he gained a sort of intuition about the requirements to fully access the change. In this case Alex needed a literal ton of these stones to unlock the trait.
The last three traits he directly unlocked since they had standard "eat so and so amount of thing" requirements The first of these three traits fused with his [flawed hunter senses] trait to turn it into [hunter senses]. This was pretty much what Alex had expected to happen since that was the only sense missing for that trait. [Hard horns] simply made Alex's horns more durable while also letting him shed his old broken ones for new intact ones. The final of these traits however made Alex feel like an idiot since despite noticing the difficulty of breathing at very high altitudes he had ignored the strain it put on him.
With this new trait his lungs now processed oxygen much more efficiently all but removing the strain that flying high up put on them. Alex hadn't tested it but he had a sneaking suspicion that if he were to dive underwater to a certain depth he would have had similar problems. None of these traits directly raised Alex's strength but even the most powerful chain was only as strong as it's weakest link. The route of all-rounding might be long and slow but Alex also knew it was the sturdiest one he could take.
Once the buzz around his adaptation ability died down another interesting thing had happened , the rathalos egg he had brought a while ago had hatched. Much to the scholars amazement they noticed that the newborn wyvern wasn't hostile towards them. Sure the little red thing was arrogant and tyrannical but it didn't attack anyone when it went about getting whatever it wanted. The attitude of the wyvern whelp changed when Alex was introduced to it however. Alex merely had to posture in front of the tiny wyvern for it to submit and cower before him.
Older members of the species might be too far gone for the instincts regarding elder dragons to make them submit but a newborn like this one followed it's instincts without hesitation. Annoyingly enough the small wyvern started to follow Alex around like a puppy and the only time he could get rid of it was when he went swimming in the sea much to the small things distress. Alex had even ended up sharing his nest with it at night due to it's obvious attachment to him. Everyone in astera thought it was adorable and spoiled the whelp rotten much like they did Alex when he was that size.
There was one bad habit that Alex needed to break the small wyvern of however in regards to food as it kept trying to eat his food that might very likely kill it. Alex didn't mind sharing the food that didn't contain toxic materials but the whelp was forced to eat it's own food when it did. An experiment Alex had started with the little one however was putting thunder attribute materials in it's food to see if it might eventually gain that element or mutate. Alex kept an eye out for any signs of this experiment harming the infant wyvern but so far it was hale and hearty while sucking up to him like normal.
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