As warm feeling filled his body, Komo burrowed deep into the sand. He feel very comfortable, but as time passed, it was becoming hotter and hotter, eventually becoming boiling hot!
His body getting hotter and hotter made Komo very uncomfortable, the pain was becoming so intense that he began to scream!
"Whad d hll iz tis!"
After ten minutes of grueling pain, it finally ended.
"It's finally over?"
Komo sighed in relief, his body feels to have unloaded a heavy burden and became a lot lighter.
"Oh? My tongue is back? My wounds all are healed as well?"
Thinking back to that pain, he could not help but lament at the difficulty this just four days life. It's difficult to hunt prey to get biomass, but when he finally gathered enough, it's barely used up on leveling and not even evolution. And yet, he had to experienced the pain of being burned.
Slowly calming his mood down, he crawled around in the nest and observed himself.
He felt that this body seemed to have become more powerful, but feeling was after all only feelings.
And yes.
He become longer, but the fact remained that he's still skinny Komodo. Komo felt like crying.
[Ring, Host's first leveling up successful! Your level increased to level 2, rewarding 5 skill points.]
[Level: 2
- Biomass: 10/20
- Skill Points: 5
- Body length: 43cm
- Diameter: 11cm
- Strength: 6
- Defense: 9
- Speed: 6
- Skill: None.]
Komo reads the text carefully before sighing. After such experience, he only grown 1cm bigger. Well good thing that his strength increased though.
[Ding! Host have enough skill points, do you want to check the available skills?]
"Oh?"
He would be lying if he said he was not interested in skills. Knowing that this is protagonist's troupe, he expected something like magic or divine power.
Without any hesitation, Komo agreed to System his mind.
"Check the currently available skills."
The light curtain in front of him refreshed, showing him another text;
[The current amount of skill points can be used to activate the following skills:
—[Camouflage:
Each upgrade consumes 5 skill points, current level: 0/5.]
—[Sprint:
Each upgrade consumes 5 skill points, current level: 0/10.]
—[Iron Skin:
Each upgrade consumes 5 skill points, current level: 0/15.]
—[Stone Skin:
Each upgrade consumes 5 skill points, current level: 0/10.]
—[Fatal Venom:
Each upgrade consumes 5 skill points, current level: 0/5.]
—Etc.]
Looking at these almost fifty skills, Komo was immediately disappointed. These skills are somewhat different from what he expected, only physical skills and not something like thunder spell.
"Sigh, I guess I can't be too greedy, huh."
And honestly, although it's only a physical skill, these skills are definitely good for him now.
After cheering himself up, he carefully read the detailed description of each skills, deliberating about which skill to choose.
To be honest, all of these two are exactly what he needs to hunt and survive here now. However, his current skill points are simply not enough to learn more than one. After thinking for almost an hour, Komo made up his mind.
"[Plant hides] good but the downside will eclipsed it's benefit now that I'm still stuck in this damned desert. [Crystal scales] got really good defense but it's potential is not high, it had really nasty downside as well. [Iron skin] got great potential, but it's useless as it will makes my body eventually half metal. Hmm…. Activate the [Armored skin] skill."
This is not a hasty decision, after all he feels that in the current situation, what he needs more is a type of defense skills rather than attack or camouflage.
After all, this is not a jungle where he could run anywhere and found food there. In this place, there's almost abundant of prey, but they're also exceptionally strong Hunter. Without proper means to defend himself, he'll become a snack sooner or later.
Immediately after instructing System in his mind, Komo felt an itch on his entire body.
It slowly morphed into pain.
The pain was so great that he screamed and jumped out of the sand and rolling around.
"Arghhhh!"
As if there was tens of sharp bladed glass in his body, his skins began to tear there and there and something began coming out of the wounds along with his blood.
This process lasted for almost an hour, leaving Komo extremely tired and exhausted. When the process done though, the pain stopped just like that as if never exist, leaving him panting in bad mood.
"Fuck…"
He looked at his own body and saw that now his entire body has been coated, wrapped under blood-red outer hides. He's now looked more like a Kalasir or your usual insect rather than a Komodo.
Komo tried to move, and nothing really changed.
Although his new appearance clearly seems stiff, he still maintained his agility.
"What about the defense?"
He really tempted to try, but now he's just exhausted.
"I gotta sleep…"
With that, he burrowed deep into the sand again.
"Now that I think about it, I have just eaten babies and their mother, huh… family meal?"
Help laughed grimly at his own dark jokes.
This sounds cruel, but Komo didn't have any sort of guilt. After all, this is the law of the jungle, the strong eat the weak. Maybe even he will be eaten as a snack by a bigger creatures in the future just like how he ate those squeaking babies just now.
Without mentioning that in the four days, he has to eat to survive as well, so he doesn't have the sort of guilt for cute things and disgust as he did on the first day. Although he doesn't want to have that kind of cold and unfeeling heart, he is trying his best to adapt himself to this new environment.
"Everything is for my survival."
As he thought of that, he let his consciousness fell.