It had been, as far as Alex could tell, about three days since his transmigration. So far he had learnt three things, his family where the lords of a medium sized city, and as such quite wealthy. His mother had been carrying him for 2 months, this was odd as in his last life human baby's only started developing a brain at 6 weeks, which mean that even though his brain had only started developing 2 weeks ago, he could already have complex thought.
Lastly, his father's chef advisor would send a very small stream of what he could only assume was 'Qi' into his mother once a day. He had over heard them mentioning that the advisor was 'nourishing his talent'. Which was a fucking lie. The first time was a scan to check his condition, the second was to see if he was a legitimate child of the duke, and the third was to cripple him. He knew this because he even had to spend 30 exchange points to undo the damage which manifested as a trait
[cripple: your foundation has been ruined and you future killed. Overall talent massivly reduced. positive statuses and traits massively weakend. positive trats are now 3 times more difficult to gain. Positive status durations are halved. Cultivation is disabled. Body forging difficulty is severely increased and upper limit is lower massivly.]
and another 15 points to hide that fact he had healed himself. In the form of the technique.
[Fetal breath: a technique made based off hosts [fetus] trait, and made useing the [pure heart and clear mind], [untainted] and [transcendent intelligence] traits. This technique that uses the hosts [fetus] trait to cloak any changes to their talent, phisque, or traits. Cloaked traits can be chosen. Effect can be togeld on or off freely. Effect of cloaking can be freely chosen so long as host as experienced said state before.]
Currently floating around, Alex was thinking. 'Ah damn it, what now? I have no points. Which is quite far off of the 455 I would like. I need a passive source of points and soon. But for now, system, convert useless knowlage from my past life into points.'
[Knowlage deemed 'useless' by host has converted. Damaged exchange system has caused the expected 60 exchange points to become 55. Total exchange points:55]
'What?! Damn it! Ah, at least it's was only five points. Should have expected something after that technique was so cheap. Oh well, nothing I can do so might as well not worry. System, how much would it cost to add a trait or status that uses a part of the nutrients i gain from my mother and converts it into exchange points?'
[That would depend on the exchange rate and amount of nutrients used.]
'make it so that she becomes hungrier, and one half of the excess nutrients is converted into as much exchange point possable with all the points i have.'
[Exchangign 55 points to create custom trait [parasite: host will cause greater hunger in there mother, half of excess nutrients will be converted into exchange points]. Damaged exchange converter has caused expected price of 55 point to drop to 30. Useing excess points to upgrade trait as per host request to 'use all the point I have'.]
[Parasite: host may designate a target(s) to parasitise through contact. Target(s) will gain status [parasite host: hunger increased. All nutrients not used will be given to parasite. this status is hidden]. One half of gained nutrients will be converted into exchange points. Remaining nutrients will be added to status [nutrient stockpile: one half of nutrients gained from parasitise host will be added to stockpile. Nutrients can be distributed freely.] Once stockpile reaches maximum capacity it will evolve into the trait [biomass storage: contains the same abilitys as status [nutrient stockpile]. Once stockpile reaches maximum capacity stored nutrients will be converted into the higher form of biomass]. Status [nutrient storage] is free as it is a byproduct of trait [parasite].]
'Wait. What?' ... ... ... 'oh.' ... ... ... 'HOLY SHIT! OH MY GOD! That's insane! Thank you damaged system, I don't care that I lost 5 points now, are you kidding me!? This is so much better then what i wanted! Haha, yes!' Alex had originally intended to create a short term fix to his point problem, he didn't expect to gain a long term solution to his problem and a new positive status as well. He immediately designated his mother as his target, it's worth mentioning that the only reason he did it this way was because his mother was in a wealthy family and could afford some more food. If his family situation was more impoverished he would have found a diffrent way of doing it.
There where certain parts of his traits or statuses that he could 'feel' that weren't explained in the description as it was impractical to do so. So he could tell that at the curent rate, he would gain 1 exchange point every 1.5 houres, but that was with his mother's current eating rate, he had only just applied that [parasite host] status to her so she hadn't eaten anything yet. Other than that, he could also tell that the [nutrient stockpile] status and [biomass storage] trait would not affect him physically, which was nice.
'System, send one half of nutrients from storage to [fetus] trait to increase my foundation.'
[Done]
Now that that was all done, Alex decided to practice useing the [fetal breath] technique, it was automatically given to him with all the knowlage he needed to use it perfectly, but that didn't mean he couldn't do self study, he didn't want to become to reliant on the system. So to pass the time, he would practice the technique so as to further understand how it worked, his three knowlage traits helped in this greatly.
A week later Alex was looking at his juicy pile of 165 exchange points, once the [parasite host] status took affect, his stream of 1 point per 1.5 houres, became a 1 to 1 rateo, which meant that he only needed to wait 19 days, now 12, to get enough points to do everything he wanted. But for now, he was planing to make the [untainted] and [pure heart and clear mind] traits permanent, as well as the [being nurtured my mother] status. 'System, you know what to do.'
[Traits [untainted] and [pure heart and clear mind] have become permanent. Status [being nurtured my mother] has become a perment trait. Exchange uneffected.]
'Nice, no price change.' Almost immediately Alex could feel the change, it was like anything that would 'taint' him was repeld from him entirely, any anything that had 'tainted' him was destroyed making him compleatly 'pure'. He also felt a deep calmness and clarity settle over him, like his mind had been cleaned out of any obstructions and any weight had been lifted from his heart. He could also feel a steady stream of energy spread though his entire body, slowly but steadily nurturing it.
'Damn, this feels, Diffrent. Seems like making the traits permanent changed them slightly, kinda like unlocking the real version of them compared to the demo.'
After this little event he went back to practising and studing [fetal breath] while he waited for his points to roll in. Another week later he had another 165 points, but decided to wait until he had the full 290 needed and after another five days he had all the points he needed. During three things of note had hapend, firstly, he had reached 10 weeks old, which meant his limbs had fully formed, and he had started to develop muscle. Secondly, his father had dropped his scans from one a day to one every two days. And thirdly, he had discovered that by useing [fetal breath] slightly differently, he could either speed up, or slow down his development.
But for now, he was focused on his new upgrades. 'System, would you please make the [fetus] trait and [submerged in amniotic fluid] status permanent?'
[Trait [Fetus] has become a permanent trait. Status [submerged in amniotic fluid] has become a permanent trait. Damaged exchange system has increased cost of [submerged in amniotic fluid] status to 25 points. Total cost: 55 exchange points. Remaining sxchange points: 235]
Soon after, Alex felt a change. His body seemed to have more potential and was more malleable, and a second flow of energy seemed to be increasing the effectiveness of the [fetus] trait. He could also tell that just like the parasite trait, neither of his new permanent traits would affect his appearance, so he wouldn't actually alwase be covered in amniotic fluid or look like a fetus. 'Damn, now I gotta wait another two days for the upgraded [transcendent intelligence] Oh well, no use crying over spilled points.' And with that he went back to studing his only technique, but this time he also paid attention to how it was affected by his traits.
Two days later [transcendent intelligence] was also made permanent, but with the modification that it was solely based off of the avrage fetus intelligence, which was to say, zero. Sadly, the zero was rounded up to 1, so he wasent counted as infinitly smarter then a fetus, and as such his trait wasen't in over drive. He was curious as to how his trait worked now though, if it gave these bonuses as just 3 times, then what about 4? Or 5? What about 10, 20, 50?
'System, how does the trait work now?'
[The trait [transcendent intelligence] will have its effect increased with every multiple of the avrage intelligence stat. As the curent avrage intelligence stat that the trait is based off is 1, special modifications have been made for balance. At the mile stones of 5, 7, 9 and 10 intelligence, the basic boosts of [transcendent intelligence] will be boosted. After that, every 10 intelligence until 100 will boost the effects, then it will be every 1,00 untill 1,000 to boost the effects. and at 100, and 1,000 intelligence new bonuses will be added. After that, every 1,000 intelligence will increase the new bonuses.]
'Huh, interesting. I guess that makes sense. Still super broken though. But now what do I do? Might as well continue to study the technique while saving points i guess. Next major goal, get 3 times the avrage in every stat, And if each stat has a transcendent trait, create permanent modified versions of each.' With that, Alex went back to his regular routine.