Alex's theory was proven possible since when he finished eating his meal the notifications from the system popped up. First and foremost was the notification telling him that he had generated three new traits , [variant electrosis T3] , [focused horns] and [thick skin]. The first trait was obviously the same type as the fire elemental trait he had gotten from zorah meaning that all elemental elders likely gave the same type of trait. Alex had a sneaking suspicion that this was true but without having eaten part of another elemental elder he couldn't be sure.
If Alex's hypothesis was true then normal monsters rarely gave this type of trait while elders almost guaranteed it. The second trait wasn't very easy to figure out since the name was kinda misleading , however Alex figured that since it came from a kirin the trait would let him focus his energies through his horns. This would undoubtedly prove handy for Alex as it would give his elemental attacks an extra bit of oomph. The final trait was one he already had so it was merely converted into an extra level for the original trait. He also got another notification that the [elder dragon] trait had gone from one to two meaning he needed to consume parts from eight more species of elder that he had personally hunted.
Getting that number to rise to three was as easy as getting the scholars to cough up the nergigante tail that they had confiscated after the siege on zorah was over. They had had it for long enough to strip as many secrets as possible from it and now it was time for Alex to devour it. The scholars were rather reluctant to part with the tail but Alex made a very persuasive argument involving leaving the little wyvern with them for another week , they caved immediately.
Alex couldn't help but eye the little wyvern with a confused expression when the scholars all seemed terrified of having the little monster again. 'What the hell did this guy do to them?' He wondered as the scholars practically sprinted to go get the tail for him. Alex chose to graciously ignore the horribly mutilated state the tail was in and devour it on the spot once it was brought over to him. He surprisingly enough only got two traits from the tail along with his [elder dragon] count going up by one , [scale regrowth] and [dense horns].
The First of these traits was rare ranked letting it get unlocked directly so Alex discovered that he could now actively shed and regrow scales rather than wait for new ones to push out the old naturally. This was a huge relief since Alex had discovered very early on that he shed his scales like most reptiles and this process was super uncomfortable. Thanks to this trait he can now directly skip that irritating itch and swap scales the moment he feels like it.
The second trait needed him to eat a number of things in order to unlock but Alex didn't mind too much. He was a little surprised at the lack of truly powerful traits when he ate this tail since he only got two relatively normal ones instead. Alex then spent the rest of the day relaxing in his nest that now had a soft blue rug on it. The next day Alex found out that the little wyvern was feeling unwell and had been shedding scales throughout the night. When alex checked on it to figure out what was wrong he found out that the thunder element had reached critical mass and was fusing with it's innate fire energy.
Neither of these two energies were conflicting so the little one wasn't in danger of dying unlike with Alex's elemental fusion. Since the little one didn't have the system however the process took much longer to finish , three days to be precise. Alex was actually rather jealous of the runt when it was finally done as the new element was the most destructive he had every seen. The small wyvern still looked like a rathalos however the color scheme was all wrong as it had equal parts red and neon blue striped across it's whole body alongside a row of spikes growing from the center of it's back.
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