The food was rich and flavorful like Alex had come to expect from the cooks in this world and he had no problem at all polishing off the entire dish. The chef nodded in appreciation for his quite apparent gluttony before moving on to the other parts of her work. Alex meanwhile was looking over the traits he had gotten from the meal. [Weaponized tail] , [ice resistance] and most surprisingly of all [cryosis]. The first two traits he already had so it merely added a level to them but the last one was the ice element that he was missing.-
Unfortunately he had a strong feeling that adding that trait to his active list would cause him serious problems. Alex wasn't sure where this feeling came from but he chose to trust it for now until he could figure out what the problem would have been. Having made this decision he left seliana again to do what he had originally planed in checking the sea near the hoarfrost region for problematic elements. It didn't take him very long to get to the sea and dive straight into it without any hesitation at all to search.-
Needless to say the water was frigid when he entered it but Alex was barely bothered and swam deeper into the deep turbulent waters. The light filtering down from above the water was very little from the clouds in the sky but Alex had night vision so he could see perfectly. What he found surprised him a little as rather than the desolate lifeless cold sandy bottom there was a kelp forest teeming with life. Sharks , penguin-like creatures , a variety of fish and of course monsters both small and large roamed the undersea forest going about their business without any issue.-
The small monsters were of two varieties specifically from what he could see at the moment , very large brown crab creatures on the sandy bottom and aquatic reptiles with sleek emerald bodies webbed claws , long paddle-like tails and sharp needle-like teeth meant for catching fish. These were both totally new species as far as Alex knew as there were no records of them that he could remember. Both species seemed to live in harmony as Alex observed the reptiles catch fish and the crabs cleaned up the mess left behind. The large monster species however was one he recognized immediately , laventis.-
Unlike the single helpful member of the species that was living near astera the kelp forest had a whole colony of the things actually blending in. Alex may not have even noticed them if he wasn't very familiar with the species appearance. It was only thanks to this that he noticed that the species had the ability to control free floating blood in the water column as the red liquid was absorbed through the red kelp and coral structures on their backs. 'It seems I had missed out on a rather interesting trait when I spared the one near astera , unfortunately it is useless to me now.' he thought with a sigh.
The entire somewhat isolated ecosystem grew tense from Alex's presence however as the presence of an elder dragon caused everything in it to bunker down in fear. Alex ignored this however and swam through the kelp forest casually looking for anything that may prove problematic right along the coast but found nothing. Sure he found more aquatic life but none of it was really a threat towards people in his opinion so after covering a huge area he left the sea satisfied with not finding anything.-
He might have changed his tune had he gone into the much deeper parts of the sea between the hoarfrost region and the new world but that was true regardless of which deep sea he went to as leviathans roamed freely. Alex spent the rest of the day after that carefully carving a large stone into the shape of the new small monster species he had seen. He had taken stone carving as a hobby recently as it kept him entertained and focused for long periods of time. He tended to give the finished products of his hobby away at random since it made people happy and they took up space if he kept them.