A Cold-Blooded POV

Chapter 19 New Body, New Stats

Apart from the heavy breaths that Ethoss let out, silence permeated throughout the cave. Soon his breathing started to speed up as his consciousness began to revive itself.

Shortly after, he opened his eyes groggily. He had been sleeping for who knows how long, and his concept of time became nonexistent once he went into evolution.

He stood up to stretch and noticed that his height had increased, he also felt much more balanced and his stance was firm now that he had an extra set of legs. His second pair of legs was right behind his first set, which made him have a total of six legs now.

Before when he stood up, he was at the torso of a goblin, but now he could look one directly in the eye, he could even look down on them. Ethoss tilted his head to get a better view of his body.

His legs had grown longer and become much more muscular and when he stood he looked much more proper, elegant even. His posture wasn't slouched or small, and he gave off an aura of pride.

His scales had changed color, from dark green to a very light green, almost cyan in color. His snout and face also had gotten restructured, instead of his round and dull snout before, his face changed becoming much more sharp, giving him a different look from other reptiles. He could even see small horns on each side of his face.

His length now was at almost 7ft. This size growth was only because of his new evolution form, if he had added evolutionary energy to make his size bigger instead of his muscle density how big would he have been now?

Regardless he was definitely stronger than his previous form, now that he checked out the changes that happened on the outside, it was time to see the real changes that mattered. He pulled up the status in his mind.

Name: Ethoss

Level: 1(Red Core)

Strength: 60

Toughness: 55

Cunning: 50

Will: 27

HP: 50/50

MP: 20/20

Skills[Attack]: Lethal Venomous Bite level(II) 1, Tail Whip level 4, Claw Swipe level 4

Skills[Support]: Rapid Dash(II) level 1, Deep Night Vision(II) level 2, Discoloration Camouflage(II) level 1, Dig level 3, Mana Manipulation level 3

Mutations: Unmasked Jacobson's organ +5, Legs +3, Eyes +3, Scales +3, Claws +3, Teeth +3, Fire Gland

Species: Draco Aeternus Lacerta(Male)

Biomass: 2

Skill Point: 1

His strength and toughness had grown significantly, Ethoss had already known that evolution was the way for monsters like himself to grow however, he didn't expect this much growth. He could feel the muscle structure in his body, it have been dramatically strengthened.

He also noticed his new organ gland, the fire gland. Looking closer at the title of the organ he began to think what this could do, its name suggested that it had something to do with fire however what wait that insisted, and what exactly was a Gland?

[Glands are organs that are only available to monsters. These organs can have multiple uses depending on the type of Gland a monster has. They allow monsters to use specific elements, while dramatically decreasing the mana consumption for each use.

IMPORTANT: The monster can only use the Gland as it is intended, the gland cannot do anything it's not made for].

[Fire Gland: This organ allows the monster to shoot fire blasts from its mouth].

Ah, so his gland gave him the ability to shoot fire blasts from his mouth. This would definitely come in handy, now he had magic and his fire blast ability when it came to range battle.

Of course, a lot of his bonus evolutionary energy was the reason for all of this, it was the right call for him to condense and form his monster core. Without it, his new evolution mostly likely wouldn't have been as powerful as it had become. He felt even more certain about his past choices, everything was coming together perfectly.

Speaking of cores, he had one right next to him. Looking at the dimly sparkling red orb, he really got to see how big he had gotten, the core look extremely small compared to his new size. He bent his head down and touched it with his snout.

[Compatible monster core detected. Would you like to reinforce your core or reconstitute a monster?]

He absorbed the core.

After absorbing the core Ethoss began to walk towards the exit of the cave, it felt foreign for him to be this tall. His belly no longer hung close to the ground, and the fat from the food he stuffed himself with was long gone.

In fact, he felt he could eat even more than before, perhaps his stomach had also expanded during his evolution. This would allow him to be able to gain much more biomass than before.

He got tired of walking and decide to use Rapid Dash to exit the cave faster. As he exited he flicked his tongue, he could smell everything, from the armored hedgehogs that dug through the ground underneath him to the monsters that were present at the lake.

Having everything in his area under his watch, pride swelled deep in his heart. He was becoming a predator among predators.

He then moved towards the lake, he still hadn't completed what he had set his mind to before any of this. He had to get his Mana Manipulation to level 5, if there was anything he had learned from the goblin massacre, it was that magic was extremely strong and versatile.

He had to get magic under his control asap if he wanted to become the strongest.

…

At the lake he lay lazily chanting the ice spell over and over, then once his MP touched 0 he'd drink from the lake to refill and repeat the same steps over and over again.

So far he had been doing this for 2 hours maybe, he understood that Mana Manipulation was much more complex than his other skills, however, it hadn't leveled up yet what was taking this so long? As if on cue the metallic voice rang.

[Mana Manipulation has reached level 4]

Finally, it had felt like forever since he'd heard the unemotional and detached voice. He had grown to miss it after hearing it so much. Suddenly Ethoss got alert, his head standing straight, and his tongue flickering. He had sensed something, but it was weird, the smell was too clean. It smelt foreign like it didn't belong here.

Most monsters smelt alike, it was like they reeked of a certain scent that made his mind understand what was a monster from plants, or what was easy prey from difficult prey. His sense of smell had grown this much, so he was sure when he smelt the scent growing even stronger. This creature wasn't a monster.